Irons in the Fire (63 page)

He walked quietly back to the room where Failla sat looking blindly out of the window.

"What's her name?"

She would have jumped, startled, but care for her child stilled her. "Anilt," she said softly.

Tathrin knelt by the chair and stroked the little girl's cheek with a gentle finger. "She's beautiful."

"The woman from Triolle, the spy, she said she'd tell Duke Garnot I'd borne her." Failla's whisper cracked with anguish. "He'd have taken her, used her, disposed of her as he saw fit."

"I know." Tathrin knew the fates of the duke's other bastards. Everyone in Carluse did.

"I only told her lies," Failla insisted. "She already knew about the Guilds' conspiracies. I never betrayed them."

Tathrin scowled. "I'm sure we'll soon prove that."

"Kerith knows, even if Nath won't believe it." A tear spilled from Failla's lashes. "They both rode through the night with me, to make sure Anilt was safe. The Triolle woman hadn't betrayed her. I don't know why."

"If this spy baulked at such vileness, surely there's hope for all of Lescar." Tathrin brushed the glistening tear from Failla's face.

"Tathrin!" Gren bellowed up the stairs from the taproom. "Hurry up!"

"What happens now?" she asked tentatively.

"We wait for Evord to win this battle." He hesitated. "There can't be much more fighting before winter comes. As soon as it's safe, I want to send my family to Vanam." He'd been thinking about that all the way from Sharlac. Once Sorgrad had explained the importance of taking Losand, he was convinced. Everyone he loved must be as far away as possible before this war resumed in the spring. "You can go with them."

Faint amusement lightened Failla's weary face. "Do you think your mother would welcome Duke Garnot's whore and her bastard?"

"That's just what you were, not who you are now," Tathrin said firmly. He rose to his feet. "I'll look after you," he promised. "Both of you."

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Aremil

Losand, in the Lescari Dukedom of Carluse,

48
^th
and Last Day of For-Autumn

"I promised I'd have you here before festival." Charoleia pointed out of the carriage window.

Aremil craned his neck to see the walls of Losand indistinct ahead. "You're a woman of your word." He spoke as courteously as he could with the cramps tormenting him.

She challenged him with a smile. "You had your doubts."

"Losand was barely under attack when we set out from Abray," he protested.

"Any number of things could have delayed Captain-General Evord's victory here." Sitting opposite, Master Gruit supported him. A slow smile spread over his wrinkled face. "But we've done it, haven't we, lad? And I don't just mean getting here in time to eat sausage and apples. Lescar can finally look forward to peace!"

"There's no going back now, is there?" Aremil allowed himself a crooked grin. "Did you ever think it would come to this, when you berated Vanam's furriers last spring?"

"I had no notion." The old wine merchant chuckled. "But here we are, with Sharlac fallen already!"

"I told you to be patient and you'd see our plans come to fruition with the harvest," Charoleia reminded him. "But Sharlac is merely one dukedom and, in many ways, the most vulnerable. We have a long way still to go."

Jolted, Aremil winced. Charoleia's associates and Gruit's coin had procured a luxurious coach but they could do nothing about the uneven road. He tried to make light of it. "His Grace of Carluse hasn't been insisting his vassals keep up the highway lately."

"Are you very uncomfortable?" Gruit looked concerned.

"I'll be glad to stop travelling for more than a night's rest." Aremil managed a half-smile.

"This apothecary, Welgren, he's here?" Gruit looked at Charoleia. "I'll welcome some nostrum to ease my aches and pains." He shifted with a rueful expression. "I'm not as young as I was."

"I'll settle for hot wine with a shot of white brandy," Aremil said with feeling.

"Shall I close the window?" Master Gruit reached for the leather strap that would lift the glass back up to close the narrow gap.

"No, thank you." While Aremil was uncomfortably cold, the fresh air helped stave off nausea provoked by the motion of the coach.

The horses slowed for the third time that morning. Aremil heard voices as their escorts exchanged passwords with the horsemen patrolling the highway on Evord's orders.

If he didn't have Master Gruit's coin or Charoleia's mysterious connections, at least he could speed their travel by learning the passwords from Branca and making sure the captain-general's men were expecting them.

Charoleia folded gloved hands inside her fur-lined cloak. "When were you last in Lescar, Master Gruit?"

"I left Marlier to try my luck in Peorle thirty-some years ago." The old merchant gazed out of the coach window with a distant expression. "I travelled back and forth for a few seasons but every time I came home, I only heard tales of woe. After I moved to Vanam I left the journeying to my apprentices."

"Did you know Losand?" wondered Aremil.

Gruit shook his grizzled head. "In those days Marlier and Carluse were at each other's throats. The only way to pick up the highway going west was to cross the Rel into Caladhria and go north on that side of the river. If you wanted to go east, you had to travel all through Triolle and Draximal paying tolls at every turn. I lived near Cotebridge, so heading west was easier and cheaper, with just the fee for the bridge." He smiled reflectively. "If I'd been born further east or nearer the sea, I might just have taken a ship to Tormalin and never seen Vanam."

"I've found little profit in looking backwards, Master Gruit," Charoleia remarked serenely, "and none at all in regrets."

Aremil coughed as smoke slipped through the gap at the top of the window.

Gruit pulled on the leather strap to raise the glass, securing the loop on its brass hook. "The pyres are still burning."

"Were there so many dead?" Aremil wondered with misgiving. Charoleia might disdain regret but he still felt a share of responsibility for those who had fallen here.

"It's Mountain Men boiling something." Gruit peered out, mystified.

"Their fallen," Charoleia said with a mischievous glint in her eye. "They don't believe in burning the dead. According to their customs, bones should rest underground, since all mankind and the land were made by Misaen. In the Mountains, they lay their dead in stone tombs." She held a fold of her cloak over her nose as they passed fires ringing steaming vats. "On some long journey, they can hardly ship a corpse home. They dismember the bodies, strip the flesh by boiling them and pack up the bones until they return."

"Poldrion save us," Gruit said faintly.

"Hence those ghastly rumours spread before the battle," Aremil realised.

"Quite so." Charoleia smiled.

Aremil tried to ignore the insidious smell. Hopefully Branca had heeded his urging to stay safely inside the town while everything beyond the walls was still so uncertain.

They travelled onwards in silence through the significantly reduced ruins surrounding the town. Aremil noted that brick and building stone had already been salvaged and stacked in neat piles.

"I see Evord's had all this ground cleared," Charoleia remarked.

"Did he do that?" As they reached Losand's walls, Gruit pointed at the broken-necked bodies dangling from the battlements.

Aremil was thankful that his indifferent eyesight spared him the repellent details. "I thought most of the mercenaries surrendered?" He looked at Charoleia.

She shrugged, quite composed. "I'm sure Evord can explain."

"I'm sorry I have found it so difficult to work sufficient Artifice to keep you fully informed of late," Aremil said stiffly.

Pain and weariness provoked by the rigours of the journey had severely limited his recent aetheric communications. Though Aremil couldn't be wholly sorry. Seeing the distress of Sharlac and Carluse through everyone else's eyes had taxed him sorely.

Leaving all the gruesome sights behind, the carriage rattled through the archway of Losand's great gate tower.

"Some people are planning on celebrating the start of the festival tomorrow." Gruit looked more hopeful as they saw doors decorated with garlands of red and golden leaves.

"What do you suppose they're thankful for?" Aremil wondered.

He caught sight of a flag in Carluse black and white trampled in a gutter, just as Tathrin's recollections had shown him Sharlac's russet and green cast down in the filth.

An importunate hand hammered on the door as the carriage slowed once again. It opened to reveal Reniack's weather-beaten face.

"If you're going to see the captain-general, can I beg a lift?" Without waiting for an answer, he hauled himself inside.

"What brings you to Losand?" Gruit edged over to give the pamphleteer some space.

"Finding out what really happened here and in Sharlac." Reniack waved an airy hand. "To make sure the truth reaches ears where it'll do most good, while convincing lies terrify all those we want quaking."

Charoleia inclined her head. "You've already done a fine job in Draximal and Parnilesse."

"Thank you." Reniack accepted the compliment as his due. "My broadsheets will be circulating around every festival bonfire, castigating Their Graces, or should I say, their scapegraces." He pressed a grimy hand to his faded blue jerkin, his expression appalled. "How can Duke Secaris and Duke Orlin leave hapless vassals to be slaughtered in their beds by marauding Mountain Men while they frivol with the Duke and Duchess of Triolle?"

Charoleia laughed. "Have you seen Sorgrad and Gren?"

"Not today, my lady." He reached inside his jerkin and produced a sheaf of inky paper. "Now, what do you think of these?"

Charoleia unfolded the page he handed her. "Omens and predictions for the second half of autumn?"

"Based on the ancient and proven principles of Aldabreshin fortune-telling," Reniack said with relish.

"It's all the fashion in Toremal," Charoleia commented, "since one of their warlords visited the Emperor last year."

"An inventive man can read anything he chooses into patterns in the sky or the flight of startled geese." Reniack rattled the papers. "All these prophecies are carefully devised to suit our purposes." He grinned wolfishly. "Wait till you see my almanac for next year's calendar."

As Gruit read the pamphlet, his bushy eyebrows rose to his white hair. "Garnot of Carluse will have his militiamen throw such sedition onto midwinter's bonfires."

"They can make themselves all the more unpopular by doing so." Reniack nodded.

Aremil frowned. "People won't rush to buy books that will get them flogged."

Reniack dismissed his concerns. "My people will sell my almanac in every town across Ensaimin and Tormalin where more than five Lescari families live. As for spreading insurrection across Lescar, we need not commit that to paper." He stood up and thumped on the roof to get the coachman's attention. "We're setting up the presses in the Exchequer Hall. No one objected to us throwing Duke Garnot's reeve out on his arse."

"What have you done with all the records and correspondence?" Charoleia asked quickly.

"Everything's safe with the captain-general." Reniack reached for the door. "Along with the coin, though there was little enough of that. Solstice revenues were sent to Duke Garnot long since and as we attacked before festival, no one has paid their autumn dues yet."

"They won't have to." Charoleia tucked the prophecy pamphlet into her glove. "Make sure everyone knows they can thank Master Evord and his army for that relief."

"Certainly," Reniack assured her.

He stepped out of the slowing coach, barely waiting for it to come to a halt. Through the open door, Aremil could see a broad square with fountains at the centre.

Gruit was still reading the pamphlet. "If nothing else, we can rely on Reniack to confuse our enemies."

They soon drew up in front of a broad stone hall. Bicoloured pennants and a creamy banner with a hovering black wyvern mingled with the guild flags. Hanging from an upper window, he saw the bold standard of Evord's new army. The ring of hands clasping the honest tools used by the humble men and women of Lescar was even more striking than he remembered, brilliant as sunshine against the unbleached linen.

A man-at-arms stepped forward to open their carriage door. Gruit stepped stiffly down and offered Charoleia his arm. She descended with her usual grace. Aremil adjusted the crutches she handed him and accepted Gruit's help out of the coach.

Branca was there, laying her hand on his arm, brushing a kiss on his lean cheek. She looked into his eyes with veiled concern. "How are you?"

"Well enough." He wished he could lay his hand over hers but that would risk dropping his crutch. "Better for seeing you."

Charoleia was stripping off her gloves. "Can we see the captain-general?"