Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (6 page)

The sacristy fell silent as bo
th brothers relived the debates and anguish of a tumultuous year gone by.   Xander was deepest in a reverie he made no move to break.   “Was that a part of it?” Udecht asked, trying to draw out the promised reciprocity of Xander’s account of their years apart. “It was barely a year after Matteus was awarded the province that you disappeared?”

Xander shook his head with a shiver that ran down to his shoulders as though throwing off some feared memory.
Udecht hurried on. “Haselrig vanished at the same time.  Much came out afterwards about what that man had been up to. Missing gold was the least of it.  And then there was the dungeon guard that left his post. Were they in league? Did they spirit you away?”

Xander sighed.  “Brother I was a fool, a blind angry fool and I
have paid dearly for my folly, methinks more dearly even than Eadran himself in his hubris.  But I have not been idle these years gone by.“ His fingers were twitching, flicking, with a dexterity that was surprising to Udecht, given the injuries Xander’s hands had suffered. 

As the B
ishop raised his eyes to meet his brother’s gaze he saw that Xander was smiling, grinning broadly. He raised a finger to point at Udecht’s chest and announced in a steady sonorous voice quite unlike his usual tone, “vos sile Udecht!”

Udecht was stunned. T
he forbidden tongue of mages coming from his brother’s mouth. At first he even thought it was the surprise that had momentarily paralysed him, but then with horror he realised he had been bewitched. There was no muscle of his body that remained in his voluntary control.

“As I was saying, brother,” Xander went on in a conversational tone before his immobilised brother. “I have not bee
n idle. You are experiencing but one of the many skills and tricks I have acquired. Here let me show you another.”

Another blindingly fast curl and twist of fingers and hands ended with Xander sliding his palm down Udecht’s sweating brow as he intoned,
“dare mihi faciem tuam et tollat mea, Udecht.”

As the hand blocked his vision, Udecht felt a terrible nauseating sensation of dizziness and disorientation.  He blinked and trembled and as his line of sight cleared was sickened still further by the vision before him.  It was as though looking in a mirror.  The man facing him still wore the silken nightshirt which Udecht had put on him for comfort’s sake, but the face and body was
not Xander’s but Udecht’s own, even down to the swelling belly beneath the night shift.  The expression of cruel triumph facing the frozen Bishop was, however, entirely Xander’s, albeit painted on his younger brother’s features. “By Eadran’s blood, you should see yourself, brother,” Xander cried through a mouth like Udecht’s.  “Do I really look like that?  Here, have a look at your hands.  Oh no, I was forgetting you can’t move!”

The B
ishop’s trapped mind ran like a runaway cart within his frozen body as Xander cheerfully pulled off his robes and arranged the clothing so it matched the appearance their respective bodies now bore.  Then he levered Udecht carefully onto the bed, facing the wall.  “There brother, rest easy.  You see, I mean you no harm, I want you of all people to witness and share my triumph.  You wait here. I should be back long before this enchantment wears off and I will have some new friends for you to meet.”

As
the transformed Udecht lay hapless and helpless on the bed, tears of shame and fear ran down his cheeks.  But the two guards at the door saw and heard only what they expected. that is the Bishop Udecht leaving the sleeping prisoner with an admonition that his brother was quite exhausted and not to be disturbed until morning.

The fire in the captains’ wardroom threw fierce shadows across the walls as the flames devoured the stack of logs in the grate, yet still Captain Thackery shivered and held his mug of mulled mead close, in need as much of its warmth as its flavour.

“It’s cold out there, Kim
,” he said to his fellow officer.  “Colder than I’ve ever known it.”

“I guess it must get into old bones like yours more easily,” Kimbolt teased.

“Beardless pup,” Thackery shot back.  “I can remember when you were a raw recruit, wet behind the ears.” He supped on his drink.  “You thought you knew it all then as well so some things haven’t changed.”

The younger man raised his own glass in a toast of salute.   “The world changes, friend.”

Thackery nodded, “’n not just the weather.  Talk with the men is that there’ll soon have to be two exile escort patrols each month.”

Kimbolt frowned at the worrying thought, though it was one he had been consid
ering himself.  “How could they?” he chose the role of Devil’s advocate.  “I mean the assizes are only held monthly.”

“Them’d have to change as well
.”  When his colleague arched a sceptical eyebrow, Thackery went on.  “C’mon Kim, you know as well as I do we’re processing two even three times as many exiles than we used to when I started and more and more of them are workers of the dark arts.” He spat at the mere contemplation of the forbidden mages.  “They’re zealots, not even afraid of exile anymore, like some kind of cult.  We fill them to the gizzards with mindnumbing juice, particularly on the day they go out.  Now that used to have them crapping themselves, like we made sure of it.  No way a wizard with no spells could survive a week out there.  There’s some people for whom exile should mean death.”

Kimbolt nodded good naturedly
.  His colleague’s vituperative approach to all things magical was Thackery’s most defining characteristic, that and his handlebar moustache, now sadly wilted by the melted frost.

“And still, we take them out and it’s like a walk in the park for them.  Oh aye, it’s cold
and they grumble, but thing is, they’re not afraid, not like they used to be. For them exile is just not the deterrent it used be, I tell you.  Dunno which circle of hell they’re so happy to be headed for, ‘cos sure as dwarves dig dirt they ain’t headed for the bosom of the Goddess.  Maybe the point would be better made if we just burnt a few of the bastards in a town square or two.”  Thackery raised his palm in mock surrender at Kimbolt’s shocked expression.  “Oh, aye I know, no death penalty in the Salved Kingdom.”

He sighed.  “You know, i
t’s laws like that lost us an Empire overseas. Time was an’ near enough all the lands overseas bowed down to us. Nowadays it’s just one flea bitten port and a spit of land around it that we can call our own.”

“I guess you remember the
Empire then old man.” 

“Don’t talk rot, last mainland province of the Salved
fell four hundred years before either of us was born.  Mind you I have served in Salicia.”

“Is that where you got the fleas then.”

Thackery ignored the gibe, musing on his past glories.  “’s different out East, everything.   More gods, more elves, people doing magic like it was natural.  Goddess protect us, I say.”

“I’d like to see it myself,
do a tour of duty over the sea one day.”

“Set you up nicely that woul
d, ambitious fellow like you. Who knows you might even come back with a wife.”

Kimbolt smiled.  “I’m like you Thackery, married to the army.”

The older man snorted.  “Then mebbe you’d better tell that to yon servant girl who is always sniffing around.”

“Who,” Kimbolt w
as startled.  “You mean Hepdida?”

Thackery rolled his eyes.  “By the Goddess
, he even knows her name!”

“There’s nothing …. It’s… no…. of course,” Kimbolt stuttered through the start to a host of denials, all too aware of Thackery’s disbelieving indifference.  “Look she’s only fifteen.”

“Send her a birthday greeting did you?”

“Of course not,
not like you mean.”

Thackery levered himself upright and waved Kimbolt’s protestations into silence.  “It’s been a strange day, one lost prince discovered and another never lost prince so put out by the event that
we’re all on double guard duty.  So me, I’m going to turn in while I can.  My advice to you though, whatever happens with the wench, promise her nothing.”

Kimbolt flailed for a suitable retort but had found none by the time Thackery disappeared into his sleeping chamber. The younger man was left ruing the turn of events.  He had thought Hepdida’s interest in him to be just a minor adolescent crush which he considered he was managing quite well; it turned out to be both more widely known and deeply misconstrued than he had ever imagined.

Niarmit calculated that the swimmer in the pool was well on the way to sinking.  Only the agitated thrashing of his arms gave
enough propulsion to balance the pull of gravity dragging him down and between each vigorous paddle of his arms his face disappeared beneath the surface.  In his panic he seemed to be mistiming his intakes of breath and the moments when his face was above water, so that a fair amount of water was already being swallowed.

She lay flat on the stone and threw
him one end of her belt.  Somehow his flailing arm caught it and, with her pull keeping his head above the surface, they managed to negotiate a passage to a lower lip of the pool, where he hung panting for a moment, half in half out of the water.

She stood back from him, the belt in one hand, the sword still in the other levelled at the half drowned man before her.

“Aren’t you going to help me out,” he asked once his coughing fit had subsided.  “You know, for old times’ sake.”

“You shoul
dn’t go swimming in a leather shirt and boots.” She told him, still keeping a clear distance and a watchful eye between them.

Reluctantly he hauled himself unaided out of the pool, crawling across the rocky edge as first wa
ist, then knees then feet came clear of the clinging water.  Drenched and drained he rolled onto his back still spluttering.  “I wasn’t planning on going swimming, you threw me in remember.”

“You shouldn’t go creeping up on a lady when she’s bathing.”

He looked across at her and pushed himself into a sitting position.

“It’s not as if I haven’t seen it all before,” he grinned.

“Doesn’t give you the right to see it all again, Davyn.  Turn around.”

“OK.” he agreed huffily. “I’ll turn my back on the mad woman with the sword who just nearly drowned me by throwing me without warning into a fifteen foot deep pool.
A pool at the bottom of which, incidentally, lies the sword I borrowed from my father.  I hope someone’s going to get it for me.”

She waited until he had turned then stepped back and l
owered her sword with a soft jangle to the stone.   Then she pulled on her breeches first, watching him carefully as he obediently made no move to left or right.  Next she picked up her shirt and pulled it over her head.  She made a bit of a fist of getting it on, letting her head get caught in one of the armholes until she heard him move, squelching hastily across the rocks.  She gauged the moment, leaning back and pulling her head through the hole just as she heard the clink of the sword lifted from the ground.

Her sudden movement caught him off guard and the blade whistled harmlessly through the space she had been.  As he drew back again for another blow she stepped quickly to the other side forcing him to change his aim to follow her.  But he didn’t.  He stood there blade pointed at her chest in an apparent reversal of their previous positions.  She stood taut, alert waiting for his next move, more curious than afraid.  But he made no move.

“So this is how you remember me, Davyn,” she rebuked him softly.

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he said with a sob.

“Oh, you would have preferred to stab me in the back?”

“Niarmit, don’t make this any harder than it already is,” he cried, the point of the blade wavering in his grip.

“An odd demand for an assassin to make of his victim, I assume that is why you’ve come, to kill me?”

“Strictly speaking, I could take you in alive or dead, but given our new Mayor’s habits I think it would be better if you were dead before you got to him.”

“You were always a considerate lover.”

“Don’t mock me, Niarmit.  Do you thi
nk I wanted this?”

“There was a time you said you would marry me Davyn.  When enough years had passed we would h
ave been rulers of Undersalve and yet now you serve our people’s enemies? What has happened to you?”

“Our people’s enemies.” He gave a bitter laugh.  “Who cause
s the most deaths in Undersalve? Eh, you killed Nordag, very clever I’m sure and I bet you’re so proud of it.”

“He was scum. Y
ou should have seen the girl he had tied up….”

“I have seen her!
” Davyn interrupted in a rage.  “I have seen her. Do you think your intervention saved her? Do you think it saved anyone?  She was the first person they went to once they’d found the bastard’s body.  She and her family. She gave them a description, eventually.  Poor stupid brave girl, that’s how I worked out it was you. That’s when I guessed this would be a good place to find you.  But telling all didn’t save her.  It didn’t save her family.  It didn’t save her village.”