Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (51 page)

In fact the impending siege seemed to have had little effect on the Reader’s schedule. He and his bishops still made the daily procession through the square, though not so many were inclined to kneel, busied as they were by the myriad tasks allotted by Lady Veliss. The Reader’s services also continued uninterrupted, often to mostly empty pews, though some reported his sermons were more impassioned and compelling than usual.

“Doesn’t mention the war at all,” a House Guard told Reva as she and Arken helped him carry bushels of arrows up to the battlements. “Seems most fond of the Sixth Book these days.”

The Book of Sacrifice.
“Any particular passage?” she asked.

“Oh, what was it last time?” The guard hefted a bushel onto the growing pile above the main gate. “The one about how Alltor’s children refused to leave him when the mob came for him.”

“‘The blades of the unloved shone bright beneath the moon,’” Reva quoted. “‘The blood of the martyred brighter still.’”

“That’s the one. Can’t claim to be that fussed about it all, but the wife insists we go. The last Reader though, now there was a man you could listen to all day. He really made the books sing.”

◆ ◆ ◆

New recruits began arriving in large numbers towards the end of the first week. About a hundred a day at first, swelling to over four hundred within ten days, many with families in tow. Most of the older men carried longbows whilst the younger often bore swords or pole-axes handed down by their fathers, though many had no more than bill-hooks or any farm implement with an edged blade. A few brought no weapon at all and Uncle Sentes was obliged to empty the manse’s sword room to meet the need.

“This one I’ll keep, I think” he said, holding up his grandfather’s sword as the others were carried through the gates to be handed out. “Bag me a few Volarians with it, eh?” He made a few clumsy swings with the sword as Reva looked on.

“I’m sure I’ll bag enough for both of us, Uncle,” she said.

“Oh no.” His tone was emphatic. “You will stay by me and Lady Veliss for the duration of this siege.”

Reva gaped at him. “I will not . . .”

“You will, Reva!” It was the first time he had raised his voice to her and she found herself taking a backward step from the anger in his face. Seeing her alarm his expression softened. “I’m sorry.”

“I fight,” she said. “It’s what I do. It’s all I can do. All I can offer you and these people.”

“No. You offer more than that. You offer hope, hope that this fief will survive what comes to tear it down. And that hope cannot die. I have seen battle, Reva. It knows no favourites, it claims the strong and the weak, the skilful and the clumsy.” He extended a hand and she took it. “The old and the young. I need your word. You will stay by me and Lady Veliss.”

His grip was gentle, but insistent. “As you wish, Uncle.”

He squeezed her hand and turned back to the manor.

“The Lord of Blades,” she said. “You’re so sure he’ll come?”

“Aren’t you? You know him better than I.”

“The Reaches are many miles away, and who knows what lies between him and us. And all the people of this fief have ever offered him is fear and hatred. Why would he come?”

He put a hand around her shoulders as they walked through the gardens, rows of grain sacks ascending on both sides, the topiary animals all cut down days ago. “When the High Keep fell I found Al Sorna crouched over your father’s body, reciting one of their catechisms. For some reason he seemed genuinely upset. He also ordered the bodies of your father’s men given a proper burial under the Father’s gaze. Whatever hatred our people may level at him, I don’t think he returns it. He’ll come, I have no doubt of it. We’ll just have to ensure there’s something here for him to save when he does.”

◆ ◆ ◆

She took to sparring with the House Guards most afternoons, two or three at a time assailing her with practice swords as she danced her dance, deflecting every blow and landing her own. None seemed to be affronted by defeat at the hands of a teenage girl, if anything they seemed heartened by her skill, a few even seeing something of the divine in it.

“The Father guides your sword, my lady,” the senior sergeant said after she had sent two more of his men stumbling into each other. His name was Laklin, a stocky veteran of battles against various outlaws and rebels, and a survivor of Greenwater Ford. He was also the first Cumbraelin she had met, besides the Reader, who came close to matching her knowledge of the ten books. “‘The Loved need not fear the tides of war or the swords of evil men, for the Father will allow them no defeat.’”

Nor suffer them to bring war to the Unloved,
Reva completed the quotation, thinking it best left unsaid.

Her gaze was drawn to the edge of the parade ground where a new company of recruits were giving their names to a harassed-looking Lady Veliss. She was an oft-seen presence throughout the city, two assistants in tow burdened with numerous scrolls and ledgers as she signed permissions on behalf of the Fief Lord and kept records of men and supplies, all meticulously transcribed into a single leather-bound volume come the evening. More than once Reva had found her slumped across it in the library, snoring faintly. Reva noted the suspicion on her face as she took down the name of the man before her, an archer heading a company of some thirty men.
Bren Antesh,
Reva recalled.
True to his word.

She bowed to the sergeant and excused herself, walking over to Veliss, finding her giving Antesh a hard stare. “No other names to give?” she asked with pointed deliberation.

Antesh seemed puzzled as he shook his head. “What other name would I have, my lady?”

“A few come to mind,” Veliss replied.

“Captain Antesh, is it not?” Reva said. “My uncle will be glad to see you kept your promise.”

The archer gave her a brief look of appraisal before offering a deep bow. “You must be Lady Reva.”

“I am. If Lady Veliss is done with you, I’ll show you to your place on the walls.”

Veliss took her arm and led her a short distance away. “Do not trust this man,” she stated in a low voice. “He is not who he claims to be.”

Reva frowned. “He comes in answer to his Fief Lord’s call, in accordance with a solemn promise. Those do not seem the actions of an untrustworthy man.”

“Just have a care around him, love.” Veliss’s voice lost much of its smoothed vowels as she reached out to clasp Reva’s hand. “You know much, but not enough. Not by half.”

The intensity in her gaze and voice provoked an unwelcome doubling of Reva’s heartbeat. “I know this man comes to fight for the people of this fief,” she said, disentangling her hand from the lady’s grip. “Him and thousands more. No sacks of gold or swift horses for them.”

“You know why I said that.”

“I know we have little time to indulge your suspicions. What place do you have for them?”

Veliss sighed and produced a letter from the bundle she carried, folded and sealed. “It seems your uncle anticipated the captain’s dutiful return. He’s to be made Lord Commander of Archers. He’ll choose his own place.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Lord Antesh,” the archer mused as Reva walked the walls with him. “My wife will be pleased, at least. Perhaps I’ll buy that pasture she’s been on about.”

“Your wife is not with you?” Reva asked.

“I sent her and the children to Nilsael. They’ll make their way to Frostport and, if this city should fall, on to the Northern Reaches where I have reason to believe they will be made welcome.”

“The Tower Lord owes you a debt, I know.”

“The Tower Lord will make them welcome because they are in need of shelter, for such is his nature. Any debt between us ended with the war.”

“My uncle is certain he’ll come to our aid.”

The archer gave a soft laugh. “Then I pity any Volarians left to face him.” He moved to the chest-high wall between the crenellations, eyes dark with calculation as he looked out at the causeway leading away from the main gate. “Easy to see why this place has never fallen. Only one very narrow line of march and all year round the surrounding waters remain too deep to ford.”

“Lord Commander Arentes is sure the issue will be decided at the walls.”

“You don’t sound convinced, my lady.”

“By all accounts, Varinshold fell in a single night. The greatest city in the Realm taken, the King slain and his host defeated in a few days. I know little of armies and wars, but such feats must require preparation, plans months or years in the making.”

There was some surprise in the look he gave her, but also a measure of relief. “Glad to see the Fief Lord has exercised sound judgement in choosing his heir, my lady. You reason the Volarians must have similarly-long-laid plans for us?”

“It’s not widely known, but an attempt was made on my uncle’s life the very night you came to petition him. Had the assassins succeeded, the fief would now be in turmoil and there would be no-one to organise the defence.”

“Must’ve been a clumsy bunch, these assassins, to have failed so.”

“Indeed they were.”

“If my lady is correct, then the Volarians’ plan has failed and they have little option but to lay siege.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ve yet to see the whole of their design. Tell me, what do you know of the Sons of the Trueblade?”

His gaze clouded and he turned to the river. “Fanatical followers of your late father, or so I hear. They found little purchase in the southern counties, people are more pragmatic in their devotions there. You think they have a hand in this?”

“I know it.” She paused, watching him as he scanned the river from bank to bank, his archer’s eyes no doubt calculating ranges. “Why does Lady Veliss greet you with such suspicion?” she asked him.

“Not for any allegiance to the Sons, I assure you.” He glanced back at her, his eyebrows raising as he noticed the wych-elm bow she carried. “Father’s sight, my lady. Where did you find that?”

She hefted the bow and shrugged. “I bought it from a drunken shepherd.”

Antesh reached out a tentative hand. “May I?”

She handed the bow to him, frowning as his eyes roamed the stave, fingers playing over the carvings, a smile coming to his lips as he thrummed the string. “I thought them all lost.”

“You know this bow?” she asked.

“Only by reputation. I had occasion to draw one of its sisters as a child. Straightest shaft I ever loosed.” He shook his head and handed it back to her. “You really don’t know what this is?”

She could only shake her head. “The shepherd had some tall tale about an old war. I wasn’t really listening.”

“Well, there may have been some truth to the tale, for the five bows of Arren were all lost in war, the war that brought this fief into the Realm in fact. My lady, what you hold is a veritable legend of Cumbrael.”

Reva looked at the bow. She had often marvelled at the artistry of the carvings, and knew it as a weapon of considerable power, but a legend? She began to suspect she was the foil for some archer’s joke, a veteran’s prank on an impressionable recruit. “Really?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

Antesh, however betrayed no sign of humour in his reply, “Really.” A frown creased his brow and he straightened from the wall, his gaze more intense now, tracking her from head to toe. “Blood of the Mustors carrying a bow of Arren,” he said in a soft tone.

After a moment he blinked, abruptly turning away and hefting his own bow. “I should be about my lordly duties, my lady.”

“I should like to hear more,” she called after him as he strode away. “Who is this Arren?”

He just held up a hand in a polite wave and strode on.

◆ ◆ ◆

The scouts returned the following day, two exhausted riders relating their tale to the Fief Lord and assembled captains in the Lord’s chamber. “The border lands are burning, my lord,” the older of the two said. “Everywhere people flock southwards, tales of slaughter and cruelty told by every soul we questioned. Rumours were wild and many, but it seems clear that the King is truly dead and Varinshold fallen along with most if not all Asrael.”

“Any news of Princess Lyrna?” the Fief Lord asked. “I had heard she was on some mad peace mission to the Lonak.”

The soldier shook his head. “It seems she returned the very day the Volarian fleet descended, my lord. They say the palace burned taking every Al Nieren with it.”

“Did you see any Realm Guard at all?” Lady Veliss asked.

“A few stragglers only, my lady. Wasted wild-eyed men, shorn of armour and weapons, fleeing south as fast as they could. We did find a motley company yesterday seemed to have some fight left in them, only a hundred men or so. We told them to make their way here.”

“The Volarians?” the Fief Lord asked. “You saw them?”

The man nodded. “The vanguard only, my lord. I reckon maybe ten miles south of the border as of six days ago. I estimate over three thousand horse and twice as many light infantry, moving south at a fair lick.”

“We now number some thirteen thousand, my lord,” Lord Arentes pointed out. “Giving us a temporary advantage.”

“Our trained men number no more than half that,” Antesh said. “And we’ve only a few hundred horse. We couldn’t hope to match them in open field.”

“And we shan’t,” Uncle Sentes stated firmly as Lord Arentes drew breath to speak again. “Thank you, good soldiers,” he said to the two scouts. “Get y’selves something to eat in the kitchens. Tell the cook I said to give you the red from the Malten Vale.”

“The vanguard,” Lady Veliss said after the soldiers had gone. “Perhaps a fifth of their army?”

“More like a tenth,” Antesh said. “Even if only half the tales from Asrael are true, the force needed to subdue the entire fief must be massive.”

“And they’ve no need to secure their northern flank thanks to Lord Darnel’s treachery,” Uncle Sentes said. “They’ll have to garrison the towns they’ve taken, allocate troops to mop up the countryside. But we shouldn’t delude ourselves. The force that comes will outnumber us greatly.” He turned to Antesh. “Which begs the question, do we have arrows for all of them?”

The archer gave a regretful grimace. “I estimate we need at least four times the number already stockpiled, my lord.”