Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (12 page)

“Aye, Captain, but if you die what will
then become of Hepdida?” A smile played across Dema’s lips as the servant girl’s name drew Kimbolt sharply from his self-destructive resignation.  “Aye, I see she means something to you, and she a poor orphan now, trusting so much in the great Captain Kimbolt.  However there is an orc I know who has taken a keen liking to your little serving wench.”

“What would you want with me
?” Kimbolt asked thickly.  “What would you want with a servant girl?”

“Come with me and you will find out.”

With a renewed sense of dread, Kimbolt did as he was bidden.

Kaylan used the flat edge of his sword to pat down the earthen mound, while Niarmit laid the last of the stones around its base.  The thief turned resistance fighter wiped the grimy perspiration from his brow.  It had taken all morning to find a spot that pleased his lady and most of the afternoon to scrape some hole half deep enough to inter Davyn’s body.   But Kaylan had not dared to make any complaint, not when at last she had roused herself from torpor.  So now the man who had come to kill her lay at rest in his own shallow grave.  Kaylan would have left his corpse for the wolves, but that was not his lady’s wish.  Instead he stood head bowed at the bastard’s graveside, waiting for some pious comment on the traitor’s passing.

Niarmit took her p
lace at the head of the mound, her clothing sweat stained by the day’s exertions.  She had said little throughout the gruelling activity beyond short directions on the mechanics of burying her assailant.  Kaylan had gratefully inhabited the silence losing himself in the task rather than face his Lady’s reproachful gaze.  And now, like Davyn’s grave, her internal ruminations were finished.

“Will you say a few words, my lady?”

She shook her head.  “What is there to say Kaylan?”

He misconstrued her meaning.  “I know not the words, my lady.  I
had thought a priestess of the Goddess would be accustomed… but perhaps… maybe…”

“Fool, Kaylan,” she said.  “I know the ceremonies well enough.  I just doubt the word or wishes of the Goddess matter anymore.”

Kaylan, ever superstitious, drew a hurried crescent across his chest and glanced around lest the Goddess herself should be spying on them from the trees.  “My Lady, you are a priestess and princess, rich in the Goddess’s favour. Such words are blasphemy.”

“Rich in her favour
?” Niarmit laughed, an unsettling mirthless laugh that had Kaylan again scouring the woods for watchers. “How many came to us from Bledrag field, Kaylan?”

The thief shrugged,
“perhaps ten dozen, my lady.”

“One hu
ndred and eight, Kaylan.  And you and I are all that are left.  Those that didn’t die, slunk off in the night and now it is just us.  If this is the Goddess’s favour, then I would hate to see what befell those she wished ill.”

Kaylan crescented
himself again and pleaded, “my Lady, speak not so.  You are a priestess of the goddess…..”

“I am a failure,” Niarmit interrupted. “I have failed my people.”  As Kaylan mouthed denial, Niarmit gl
anced skywards and muttered thickly, “I have failed my father’s memory and I will go”

“Go where
?”  Kaylan’s forehead creased in a frown as he struggled with the alien concept.

“Leave
Undersalve, go across the Hadrans.”

“Leave U
ndersalve?!  for Medyrsalve? Prince Rugan is no friend…….”

“Why stop at Medyrsalve,” Niamit mused aloud.
  “There are ships still sail to the Eastern lands.  You have taught me well, Kaylan.  I’ll not starve, whether I have the Goddess’s favour or not.  I am done, not just with Undersalve, not just with the Kingdom of the Salved, I am done with the whole Petred Isle.”

As the thief shook his head in disbelief, Niarmit went on. 
“I won’t bind you to my travels Kaylan.”

“You don’t want me, my L
ady,” the panicked thought squeaked out of Kaylan’s mouth. “Are you done with me too?”

“Com
e with me if you wish, Kaylan, as far as Medyrsalve, but after that I travel alone.”

Kaylan bobbed his head, accepting the morsel of comfort her words offered. “We will need horses, my lady.  I know a place, a farm not far from here.”

Niarmit just nodded and then turned to Davyn’s grave while the thief hurried to his task before she should change her mind.

Udecht, the real Udecht, stood shivering in the inner courtyard of Sturmcairn.  He tried to stiffle the chattering of his teeth, anxious that Captain Kimbolt at his side should not think him seized by fear.  While fear was one element of the Bishop’s trepidation, it ran deeper than anxiety of a purely personal physical nature.  The night’s events awful as they had been, served as a harbinger of a still more profound re-ordering of the world.  If a lost brother could return as a treacherous outlander sorcerer, and Sturmcairn could be overrun by orcs, what other as yet unimagined nightmares might come to pass. Whatever his own fate might be, it was but a drop in the ocean of disaster which seemed set to flood his nation, a peril great enough to make a bishop tremble.

From his prison in the sacristy, Udecht had heard shouts and commotion, the clash of blade on blade.  There had been a moment of relief when a recurrence of the
nauseous sensation heralded a restoration of his normal appearance.  He had prayed that the breaking of the spell might mean some evil had befallen Xander and his plans.  However, those hopes had been dashed when first a pair of curious orcs, and then the gleeful traitor himself, had come to crow over their victory.

Bound and dragged outside he took comfort from the beacon tower, blazing into the ni
ght.  At least his brother the King would have some warning of the approaching tide of evil.  However, there was little else to provide solace to the wretched Bishop.  There was no sign of Thren, but the sword that Xander gleefully waved in Udecht’s face was proof enough of his nephew’s fate.  The weapon was one of two twin blades, forged by Eadran the Vanquisher himself and ever-after known as the father and the son, for they were born by the King and his heir.  Thren would never have parted with the blade while there had been breath in his body.

There were bodies aplenty and as he stood,
foul smelling orcs had been clearing them.   Dragging, carrying or tossing the castle’s dead into the outer bailey.  Udecht had yearned to give the fallen a final blessing, as much to atone for his own fall from grace as to succour their souls on the journey to the bosom of the Goddess.  However, Udecht’s crescent symbol which Xander had taken from him still hung around the traitor’s neck; without it Udecht was powerless to invoke so much as the lighting of a chapel candle, even had he been unbound.

Their work done, the corpse slinging party of orcs were leaving, and Udecht glanced again at his fellow prisoner.  There were just the two of them, himself and Kimbolt.  For a while Udecht had feared the entire rest of the castle population slaughtered.  However, the mewling of a child and a woman’s cry on the other side of the wall persuaded him that some at least had survived.  Kimbolt stood stunned, and Udecht guessed he was equally overwhelmed with horror and guilt.  Horror at the fall of the fortress; guilt at having neither prevented it nor perished in the attempt.

The big orc who had been giving the orders kicked the last of his comrades down the steps to the outer bailey and then turned to join the line of Sturmcairn’s conquerors standing just infront of the prisoners.  It was a select line up, besides the orc there were a couple of burly outlander ruffians, picking at their teeth with daggers.  Then there was the strange hooded lady who stood before Kimbolt, Xander was next to her and then a much changed figure whom Udecht only recognised when he spoke.  “Haselrig!” Udecht had muttered at the unmistakeable broad northern accent.  The former court antiquary and de-frocked priest had turned and inclined his head in the barest acknowledgement.  Time had served the once portly book keeper just as unkindly as it had Xander.  His face lined with stress, hair thinning unevenly, belly quite shrunken but above all else Udecht was struck by the coldness in the man’s eyes.  The mischievous sparkle he remembered had gone, replaced by a haunted gaze.

So
there they stood, two prisoners and their six captors waiting in silence, but waiting for what?

Seneschal Quintala strode through the anxious corridors of the citadel.  Despite the hour there was a bustle of people about, servants and clerks, soldiers and clerics, all hurrying hither and thither. All with tasks to do, yet all pausing like ants as they passed each other, exchanging crumbs of information to try and build a picture of what this midnight activity might mean.

However, e
ven with the distraction of the night’s events, they stopped and stared as Quintala passed and then whispered behind her retreating back.  They always had and the strangeness of the night gave them more cause than usual. Quintala even saw a couple crescenting themselves at her appearance.  Irritated more than angered, she flung back her hood, flaunting the darkened skin and cusped ears of her mother’s heritage.  Let them see more clearly the elvish traits that scattered their wits so.  It was a childish act, but sometimes Quintala felt driven to act the age she appeared, rather than the age she was. 

She
felt a certain pity for this shortlived race, these humans who were born, grew old and died, in a span of time that left barely a mark on her smooth skin.  But it was this accelerated life cycle that filled them with a fear which their faith in the Goddess could soothe but not remove.   Quintala understood this and had long accepted she would be an easy focus for their anxiety.  The  dispensation to wield magic which went with her half-breed blood was cause enough, without her distinct appearance and the fact she could have attended their great-great-grandparents’ name-giving ceremony.

At the throne room door the disciplined guards showed no such fragile emotion.  The crossed pikes were parted smartly, the door opened and her arrival announced, “Seneschal Quintala.”

It was a long vaulted room with doors at its far end leading to the King’s private chambers and the various state offices.  Torches burned brightly in sconces on the walls and, at the far end Quintal
a could see three figures gathered around the throne. 

King G
regor, dark haired, bright eyed, with a neat trim beard, sat on the simple wooden chair that served as a throne.  The real symbol of kingly power was the blank visored iron helm of Eadran the Vanquisher perched on its high marble plinth behind the King’s seat.

Prince Eadran knelt before him.  Quintala had understood Gregor’s intention in reviving the name of the Salved’s greatest rulers.  Prince Thren had been named particularly for the warrio
r king, the fifth of that name, who had brought nearly all of the Eastern lands within the dominion of the Salved.  The younger of Gregor’s sons, Prince Eadran had an even more auspicious namesake in the Vanquisher himself.  In truth Prince Thren, muscular and determined like his father, might well have echoed Thren the fifth’s achievements.  However, Prince Eadran, drawing on the fine features and artistic talents of his mother, looked more like the court minstrel than the re-incarnation of the warrior mage who had founded the Salved kingdom.

The third occupant of the throne room was instantly recognisable, the long silver hair of scalp and beard striving to reach the cord belt that gathered his white robes of office.  The crescent symbol which hung around his neck was full two hand spans in width and a clumsy implement to wield in the casting of priestly magic.  Yet
it was a token of office that marked him as the foremost cleric in the Salved Kingdom, prelate of the diocese whose first pastor had been Saint Morwena wife of the Vanquisher.

Quintala went to kneel beside Eadran, but Gregor
waved her up as he levered himself from the throne.  “This is not a time for formalities, Quintala.”

“Sire,” she contented herself with a low nod and extended the same courtesy t
o the cleric.  “Archbishop Forven.”

“Seneschal Quintala.”  The Archbishop’s chin dipped a fraction of an inch, his lips an unsm
iling line above his beard.

“Quin!” Eadran cried as he rose to his feet. “It is terri
ble, Thren … he’s…”  The young Prince grasped the half-elf’s arms but couldn’t complete the sentence, lips working noiselessly to shape words he dare not utter.  

She gave Eadran’s hand a squeeze of comfort as Gregor confirmed what all who did not know had already guessed. “My son
is dead, the ankh cannot lie, and the beacon fires are lit so Sturmcairn is in grievous peril, may even have fallen.”

Forve
n made a ponderous sign of the crescent as Quintala probed.  “How? What news have we?”

“Very little.  A cavalry squadron are on their way to
the pass now, but still it is three days of hard riding there and another three back. I need information now.”

“Of course, sire.”

“I have need of your arts. Is there a way you can spy from afar, or travel there at speed?”

Quintala grimaced. “Sire, you over rate my skills.  I can cast a spell to allow a man to run as fast as a horse, I could open a window to view perhaps the city gate, but no further afield than that.”