Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (4 page)

“In no great health, sire, but by grace of the Goddess yes, it is him, restored to us at last,” the Bishop confirmed mopping at his eyes with a silk handkerchief.

“One last test though, let him unlock the gate himself,” Thren’s tone was gri
m, the occasion far less stirring to his emotions than to the princely cleric beside him.

Udecht looked at him in shock.  “You can’t mean…”

Thren ignored him.  “Thackery press the prisoner’s hand against the gate seal.”  The veteran captain hesitated at first but then bade the stretcher bearers lift their burden and bring it to one side of the gate.

“Sire,” Udecht interrupted.  “You know what peril awaits anyone not of Eardan’s bloodline who tries to unlock those seals.  In his condition the shock could kill him.”

Kimbolt, a lowly witness to these proceedings, glanced at the life size palm print carved in stone at the right hand side of the gate.  An identical sigil lay on the far side of the wall in the gatehouse and it was this that his colleague Thackery was presenting the prisoner to. These were the ancient magical locks which Eadran the Vanquisher had added to further strengthen the fortress.  Like all the common soldiers and those of non-royal blood Kimbolt always kept well clear of the enchanted stones.

“Aye, Bishop, I know it well enough.  I’ve seen a panicked exile blasted clean across the gatehouse when he tried to unlock the eastern gate with his palm print.  But if this shadow of a man is indeed your brother and my uncle then the blood of Eardan runs in his veins just as much as ours.  He will have naught to fear from the bloodline magic.”

“And if he is not?”

Thren raised an eyebrow at the flicker of doubt Udecht seemed to now be admitting in his earlier confident identification.  “If he is not, Un
cle,” the Prince said heavily, “then you will have been sadly deceived but at least a dissembling thieving exile will have been prevented from weedling his way back across the barrier.”

Kimbolt, Thren, Udecht and the handful of sentries on their side of the gate waited expectantly.  On the far side of the portcullis, Thackery lifted the fitfully stirring invalid’s right hand.  With great care he
manouevred himself so he could place the other man’s palm against the seal while not touching the heavily enchanted stone himself.

There was no explosion of sound and light, no sparks of magical fury, only a brief purple glow from the stones on both sides
of the gateway and a low note of warning as though a distant bell had been struck and then silenced.

“See,” Udecht cried in triumph.  “He is my br
other. You do him no respect, nephew, shame on you.”

Thren just nodded to the gate guards who turned the crank to raise the now unlocked portcullis.  It was far from full raised when Udecht ducked beneath it to fuss at the side of his long lost sibling.  Seizing his hand, smoothing his brow, uttering hushed words of comfort.  “All is well now, brother you are home.”

Thackery and his troop waited until the gate was high enough to walk beneath, and then, at the Captain’s command, they marched evenly into the fortress. 

“Take my new found uncle to the exile cells,”  Thren ordered, to Udecht’s immediate consternation.

“Nephew, you are mistaken,” the Bishop wailed.  “Prince Xander must go to the infirmary, he is not well in spirit or in body.”

“’tis true, but he also has in his hands the power to unlock the major portals of my fortress.  This is a man who has been missing for what, seventeen years.  No one knows where or why he went.  As
you say, sick in mind and body. I cannot have such a potential madman roaming free.  He is to be locked up until I can be sure he is no risk.”

“Your heart is full of fear, Nephew and void of compassion,” Udecht stormed.

“My heart, like my head is full of duty, as should yours be uncle. Methinks you forget yourself,” Thren retorted with a low gravelly note to his voice.

“May it please you, sire,” Kimbolt dared to interrupt the princes’ exchange.  “And also you, your reverence.  The sacristy could be made quite secure to meet all needs and yet may offer a more comfortable lodgement than the exile cells.”

Bishop and Castellan turned to stare at his unwarranted intrusion on their public spat, but the logic of what he suggested weighed more heavily than the manner of his expressing it.  Thren, gave a curt nod. “That could be made to serve,” he admitted.

Udecht’s furrowed brow smoothed into satisfaction. “Aye, he would be close at hand to my quarters, I would have no objection to guards being posted outside.”

“Make it so, Captain Kimbolt.  Bishop you have tonight to work your healing powers.  I will visit him at first light to ask some necessary questions,” Thren instructed and then turned on his heel, departing while his exchange with his uncle was still broadly civil.

Odestus knew he was dreaming, it was always the same dream which haunted his sleep so many nights.  But knowing it was a dream did nothing to diminish the paralysing fear as his subconscious dragged him two decades back in time to that miserable little room.  He tossed and turned in his narrow campbed mumbling aloud his part in a long ago conversation.

There were twelve of them in all
. rifling through the survival packs that the Sturmcairn guards had just given them.  Odestus followed suit, his fingers struggling with the drawstring bag not knowing what he should be looking for, but finding solace in the mere act of doing something.

The little dark haired one spoke first, fierce and furious. “No weapo
ns, not even a kitchen knife. How are we to survive with this?”

“Relax friend,” the
fat one named Jonson answered him.  “The weapons are distributed at Eadran’s folly, where the escort leaves us.”

“I’m not your friend,” came the scornful reply as the speaker bashed his chest with a fist.  “Marek Firetongue
looks after Marek Firetongue, no more no less.”

“Firetongue eh?” The blond youth with the bulging biceps laughed.  “From what I hear the court thou
ght it was more forked tongue, didn’t do much good looking after yourself there.”

There was a sudden flurry of movement that Odestus barely caught as Marek lunged forward fists raised but was caught at the
shoulders and held back by a ruddy faced companion.  The guards around the room had barely time to react or maybe they could not be bothered to intervene in the internal bickering of a group of condemned exiles.  The muscled blond was laughing as the newcomer hissed, “hush Marek. Keep your head.  If the guards think you are dangerously out of control you’ll be taken to Eadran’s folly trussed up like a chicken and dependent on others to set you free.”

Either the red faced man’s words or his prior acquaintance with Ma
rek hit home.  The angry felon shook himself free of the restraint, but nonetheless lowered his fists and contented himself with giving his baiter a long hard stare. “S’all right Tarbin, I’m not a fool,” he told his florid companion at which the flaxen haired taunter raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I’ll be making a list, mind,” Marek went on.  “And when I next get a sword in my hand them as have their names on my list had better watch out.”

“It’s Mul,” the blond one said to Mare
k’s surprise.  “My name is Mul, spelled m – u – l.  I can write it down for you if you’d like, always assuming you can read.”

“Friends,” Jonson interrupted quickly.  “Sure
ly this is no time for fighting.  A trial awaits us it is true, but surely we can face it better working together as a team.  Twelve against the wilderness is better odds than one against the wilderness and eleven others?”

“Listen, gutbucket, I kill people,” Marek snorted.  “I do it alone and I do it very well and I’m not going to slow myself down with lardarses and imbeciles.  Anyone gets in my way and before I’m even halfway done they will be begging the orcs find them.”  There was a collective shudder as Marek named the great fear of all who went into exile. “And we all know who’s first on my list don’t we!”

The group parted along Marek’s line of sight to reveal the hooded and bound figure in the corner.  The leather hood was like a kestrel’s encapsulating head and eyes but leaving the woman’s mouth and nose uncovered.  Marek stalked up to her, relishing his audience, though Odestus guessed that beneath the bravado lay a fear as deep as his own.  “Don’t think anyone will be untying you, you abomination.  You’ve seen your last sunset already and soon as I’ve a blade in my hand, yours are the first guts I’m spilling.”  He gave his threat a foul punctuation with a phlegmy spit that hit the hood but still ran down her lower cheek and chin, yet the woman did not flinch or make any reply.

“H
ey Marek, she is a woman, after all.  I mean, no need to kill her, not immediately anyway,” the burly baker from Marishport broke in.  “It might be a while before…”

Whatever his intention, the fellow feeling he had hoped to engender bounced off the bristling Marek, who rounded on him with scarely less ire than he had
granted the hooded lady.  “You, baker boy! You ain’t natural, the things you do.  Don’t think you and I are walking arm in arm off Eadran’s folly no.  It’s people like you that exile is too good for.  You and your kind, you really deserve the death penalty.”

“I think this is a death penalty.”  Odestus had spoken without realising it and his soft wo
rds drew everyone’s attention, even Marek’s.

“Lo, the silent one speaks,” fat Jonson said in gentle welcome.  “Now mayhap you can tell what strengths you bring to our little group.”

Odestus looked round at the curious faces.   He was a merchant. He’d always been a merchant. His other side had only ever been a hobby.  A quite pursuit of forbidden study which his trading trips to more enlightened lands in the East had facilitated.  Yet it was the hobby not the profession that had landed him in this sad holding cell a few hours from exile and certain death.  It was by the hobby they should know him.  He stuck out his chin, tried to still the tremble in his lip and announced, “I am a mage.”

One or two laughed,
a few shrugged dismissively, most turned back immediately to their packs, the mystery that had been Odestus instantly forgotten in its moment of revelation.  Even the genial Jonson could not mask his crestfallen expression.  “Well, perchance you have talents that may help….”

“Forget him, Jonson,” the baker commanded.  “They’ll have had him stuffed full of mind-numbing juice from the moment they arrested him. He won’t be fit to cast a spell for a week at least and he’ll be long dead by then.”

Jonson nodded sadly, but still something made him cling to the hope of forming a band of comrades from this unkempt twelve.  “When did you last take the potion, my friend?”

“This morning,” Odestus admitted.  He’d quaffed the f
oul tasting liquid in one gulp, anxious not to be any trouble for the warders who had stood over him.  Although the rest of his faculties, not least his strong sense of fear, were unimpaired, that part of his mind in which he had enjoyed twisting the symbols of arcane power was now a porridge of confusion.

“Ah, right,” Jonson took a quick glance at the disinterested guards and then bent closer to whisper in Odestus’s ear.  “Still, I
know you fellows have secret ways,you know, keeping a vial of the antidote shoved up your arse?” When Odestus looked blankly back at him, Jonson gave a quick nod for emphasis.

The guards knew also of those secret ways and Odestus cringed at the memory of the many humiliating intimate searches he had been subjected to.  All of them had been quite unnecessary for, as an amateur dabbler
in the arcane arts, he had neither the contacts nor the inclination to furnish himself with such extreme precautions.  With a gulp he admitted, “I have no antidote.”

“Oh,” the fat man’s disappointment was complete.  He stood for a moment then gave Odestus a sad pat on the shoulder and moved off to smile and ingratiate
himself with more worthwhile companions.

Alone again, Odestus sidled across to the hooded woman.  She sat unmoving, Marek
’s saliva still staining her cheek for her hands were tied behind her back and she could not bring them to her face.  Odestus used his sleeve to wipe away the drool and she flinched at the touch.

“It’s all ri
ght,” he whispered.  “It’s me.”

Her mouth twisted into a smile despite their predicament.  “Ah, Odestus, I had been wondering if you were here at all.  You said nothing for the whole journey.”

“I was thinking.”

“Fo
r seven days? I thought the threat of imminent exile was supposed to accelerate the thought processes not dullen them.”

“Listen, we could both soon be dead.”

“I know that.”

“Well
, I just wanted to remind you. You owe me.”

She inclined her head and the smile grew a little broader.  “Indeed, little wizard
, how did you work that one out?”

“If it weren’t for you
, I would not be here at all.”

“I could say exactly the same thing,” she retorted.

“I will need protecting on the other side, for at least a week.  None of the others will do it, but you could. You could if I freed you.”  She said nothing, neither rebutting nor accepting his argument.  He took her silence as a good sign and went on.  “The thing is I need you to promise, to promise to look after me if I set you free.“