The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (31 page)

“We have supporters in the city, highness. We shall meet up with Kynan and Finbar. They will get you out and keep you safe,” Ryan added soothingly.

“Why can’t we join them and march back on the castle? We should have Fallon strung up and executed in front of the whole city!” Swane snarled.

But Ryan merely laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Highness, our allies in the Guilds are without men. Remember, your father thought it was better to remove them and chose Fallon to see that done,” he said soothingly.

“And look how it turned out,” Swane growled.

“Highness, all is not lost. We just have to get you out of the city. Every noble in the country will rush to your father’s defense. Between them we can quickly put together an army to take back Berry.”

“How can anyone obey Fallon before me? I am the Crown Prince!” Swane raged.

“Indeed, highness. They will be punished for their insolence. But first we must contact our friends. We cannot have our revenge immediately but it will be all the sweeter for the delay.”

Swane smiled. “We shall let all the traitors come together. Then when we take back Berry, it will be easier to destroy them all in one. They do not know what they have done.”

“As always, you are right, highness,” Ryan agreed.

Swane liked that. Father had always told him what to do, then Ryan told him what to do and Brother Nahuatl told him what to do. He had always obeyed. Now they were gone, he had the chance to do things for himself. After all, he was the King now. And his first order was to revenge himself on Fallon.

Fallon hugged Kerrin to him, while Caley gamboled around them.

“Thank you for our lives,” Feray said solemnly.

Fallon kept an arm around Kerrin as he turned to face her. “I swore an oath to keep you safe and I am not a man who breaks his word,” he said. “If your husband is the same, we shall both receive our loved ones back.”

Feray nodded and gave him a little smile. “I think it was more than that,” she said.

Fallon shrugged. “I was not going to let them sacrifice anyone to Zorva, let alone a child.”

“And yet now you have more problems than before,” Feray stated.

“Do you have the answer to some of these?” he asked. “I have much to do and little time to do it in. Just speak plainly. After what we have been through today, you owe me that much.”

She inclined her head to him. “If you set yourself up as the leader of this land, or you help one of the nobles to take the throne, you will run headlong into my husband. He will arrive back here with not a full army but more than enough men to take the city. By leading this country, you will doom it.”

Fallon sighed. “What would you have me do then?”

“Let me rule. Let the people know that Kotterman is here to save them from the evils of King Aidan. We shall rule here anyway but if my husband arrives here to find me already on the throne in his name and the country agreeing to become part of the Empire, he will be distracted by that and you will have the chance to go away, as you once told me.”

Fallon thought about it. It was certainly tempting. “But what will the price for these people be? Slavery?”

Feray looked him in the eye. “And would that be worse than what some of them go through now? Half this city are servants for your nobility, or work from dawn to dusk to pay their taxes. What is so different? And it would only be a handful each year, just the criminals. See it as a punishment. Is it not a small price to pay for peace and safety?”

“It is too high a price,” he said. What she said sounded promising but he knew what began nobly enough could soon be corrupted. Instead of merely criminals being sent into slavery it would become anyone who angered a noble. No system run by those bastards would ever be fair to ordinary people.

“Then what is your answer? Will you attempt to use this rabble of recruits to fight my husband’s men? Because, I warn you, they have been fighting around the Empire all their lives, rather than running around a city and playing at soldiers for less than a moon.”

“I don’t know yet,” Fallon admitted. “But it will not be to hand my people into slavery in Kotterman.”

Feray reached out and touched his hand. “Please, listen to me. You will inflict far more misery on them this way than if you let me take over. After what you did to us, I never imagined feeling anything but hatred for you but you saved me and my boys. Let me rule and I shall protect you.”

Fallon smiled. “I thank you for your offer but I cannot make any decisions now. I do not even have the power to rule. I am just a commoner. You need to speak to the Duchess Dina.”

Feray shook her head, her frustration obvious. “However you were born, you are the power in this land now. Don’t throw away this chance.”

Before he could say anything else, a young recruit raced over.

“Captain, the Duchess Dina is approaching the castle,” he announced.

Fallon nodded acknowledgement and the young man raced away.

“He has been using the sword for less than a moon. How will he fare against men who have been fighting for ten summers or more?” Feray asked softly.

“Devlin, find rooms for Feray and her boys. Somewhere nice, and find some servants to bring them whatever they want. I want at least ten men guarding them at all times as well.”

“Prisoners, again?” Feray asked bitterly.

“No, guests. But guests who must be kept safe. You may go where you wish in the castle but we cannot be sure all of the King’s men have been found and removed. Until the castle is ours, you must be protected,” he said. “Our families’ lives depend on it.”

She smiled then. “At least let me talk to this Duchess Dina. Explain things to her.”

“We will speak again,” Fallon promised. He did not like the idea of Feray trying to cut a deal with the Duchess behind his back. The only important thing was to get their families back. Everything else came second.

*

Duchess Dina walked into the castle as if she owned it.

“Captain Fallon, I do believe you have saved our country!” she exclaimed, striding over to him.

“Your grace.” Fallon bowed and she reached out and touched the top of his head, in what felt like a blessing.

“Now come, let us go inside. We have much to talk about.”

Fallon lingered to wait for Rosaleen. The priestess looked exhausted but raised a wan smile for him.

“She answered every question, swore she had not breathed a word to anyone. And I could only find truth in her words. She wants to help, wants to wipe away Aidan’s foul rule and bring Cavan’s dream to life,” she whispered.

Fallon breathed a sigh of relief and grasped her shoulder. He was reluctant to trust a noble, particularly Dina, but he needed help here. If Rosaleen said Dina was speaking the truth, that was all he needed.

“I have to go. There are many who need my help,” Rosaleen warned.

He nodded agreement and hurried to catch up with Dina, getting caught up in her entourage. A score of servants in the Duke’s livery, as well as carts filled with furniture and clothing. They were not just being escorted by his recruits but, in some cases, the men were helping pull them along.

“What is all this?” he hissed at Gannon.

“The Duchess is moving out of her house and into the castle. She said she needed everything,” the big sergeant said with a grimace.

Fallon shook his head and hurried to catch up with her.

Dina led the way up to the King’s rooms, where the bodies of Aidan’s guards had been removed but the bloodstains still remained outside.

“Gannon, I want these rooms cleaned, my furniture inside and a fire lit. Drag anything of Aidan’s out into the courtyard and we shall either burn it or give it away to the poor,” she ordered.

“Wait, Padraig is in there, going through the King’s papers,” Fallon protested.

“He can continue that task elsewhere. Gannon, get the papers all bundled up and send them along to Prince Cavan’s old rooms,” she said crisply. “But first of all, we need the King’s seal.”

Fallon coughed. “That was taken, Duchess. Prince Swane escaped us and took it with him, by pretending to be dead.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “That makes things even more difficult. Right then. Gannon, begin working. Fallon, follow me. We have little time.”

With that she swept away again.

Fallon hesitated for a moment then hurried after her.

She led the way down to the throne room, where the last of Kelty’s guards sat in a corner, watched by nervous recruits.

“Out of here. All of you,” Dina said crisply. “Take them to the stables and finish the job there. We need to begin the work of ruling.”

The recruits glanced at Fallon, who nodded.

While they prodded the guards and escorted them out, Dina walked around the other side of the room, looking at the tapestries and snapping orders to a pair of servants in her wake. Fallon felt like a bewildered sheepdog, trailing after a strange sheep.

“Those can go. The King had no taste,” she said over her shoulder, pointing at a pair of tall tapestries. “We shall find new ones.”

She glanced over to see the last of the recruits heading out of the throne room door and gestured to a table and chairs by the wall, the set that King Aidan used to eat in between audiences and where he had tested Fallon with the shillelagh and crossbow.

“Get every servant in the castle up here, ready for when we have finished, and then get me scribes and parchment,” she ordered, then pointed at the chairs for Fallon.

He sat down awkwardly while she waited until the servants had hurried away before joining him.

“You did it!” she exclaimed, an enormous smile on her face. “But why did you not tell me first?”

“It was not deliberate. I just did what I had to,” Fallon said stiffly.

“Well, we are going to have to work fast to hold on to what we have won. Swane escaping, with the King’s seal, is a setback. We have Berry but the nobles control the rest of the country. So the first thing we need to do is execute Aidan publicly at dawn tomorrow. He must die. Not just for what he has done, which is beyond evil. But because the nobles will never declare for me while he lives. They are too afraid of him. And him being alive also gives Swane power, because he is the agent of his father, with his father’s seal. Anything he signs and says can be made law by the King. But with Aidan dead, Swane is merely the second son and a contender for the throne. All the nobles hate him and news that Cavan is murdered will horrify them. The only other noble who might challenge me for the throne is the Earl of Meinster—”

“He is dead. Burned to death,” Fallon interrupted.

She smiled briefly. “Good. Then I clearly have rank. Next we need to appoint people we trust to powerful positions. Your wife’s father Padraig must become the Royal Wizard, while that priestess of yours should be the new Archbishop. Gannon will be captain of my guard and you, obviously, will be the head of our army.”

Fallon felt his mouth drop open and shut it with a snap. “But who will pass judgment on the King? No magistrate can convict him.”

“That does not matter. Drag the body of the Fearpriest out and hang it from the castle walls, for all to see. Then get the parents of the children he sacrificed to Zorva out here and let the people of Berry hear what he has done. Show them he had Cavan killed and then execute him.”

Dina grabbed his sleeve and jerked on it, so he looked up and into her burning eyes. He shrank back from the intensity there.

“You must understand, until he is dead, everything we have won here today is at risk,” she hissed.

He pulled his arm free and she seemed to subside a little.

“Fallon, we have a chance now. A chance to let Prince Cavan’s dream come true. A fairer Gaelland, ruled not for the benefit of a few but for all. No more heavy taxes, no more strange parties where servants are beaten and killed, no more children starving to death in streets while nobles dine from gold plates and the church has its hand out for what little the people have. Think about a church that helps the people, without demanding favors in return, nobles who must care for their county rather than themselves and a ruler who obeys the laws the way the people are supposed to. Don’t you want to see that?”

He could see the new country as she spun the vision for him. It was exactly what he and Cavan had talked about. It sounded almost too good to be true and he hesitated, until he remembered that Rosaleen had only heard truth from Dina. “You know that is what I long to see for Gaelland,” he said.

“Then let us make it happen! We can do it. You have the only army in Gaelland.”

“The nobles still have all their guards. They could match us, maybe outnumber us if they all come together,” Fallon warned. “And then there is the fyrd. Each noble can summon every man between sixteen and fifty summers to fight for them. We could see ten, twenty thousand men outside the gates of Berry in a moon’s time.”

Dina chuckled. “The nobles all sent their stocks of arms and armor here, remember? They took the money Aidan stole from everyone with his selkie tax and there is no way their blacksmiths have replaced that much in such a short time. And they will not summon the fyrd, because they will fear it will turn on them. The ordinary people will not fight for Zorva.”

“They might be forced to, if the nobles still call the fyrd,” Fallon argued.

“They might,” she said, “if you leave the King here. Every noble will know that Aidan will be demanding why they did nothing to free him. While he is alive, they will do everything they can to defeat us and save him, for fear they will be killed by him later. But remove the head of the snake and the others will not know what to do. Once he is dead they might follow Swane but all that will come with them will be their guards. And you know how to defeat them.”

“Aye, I do,” Fallon admitted.

“So why do you hesitate? He tricked you into killing your Prince, sold your families into slavery and tried to kill your son. What else does he need to do?”

“Nothing,” Fallon said harshly. Any one of those reasons was good enough to kill Aidan. But he was still the King. Down in the chamber he had been happy to kill Aidan and had even tried to. If his hand had not been so bloody he would have ended the King’s life and not thought twice about it. But that rage was gone and he worried about being the man who judged and executed the King. He remembered what he liked about being a sergeant. Other people made the big decisions and you just carried them out.

“Why do you hold back? I would have thought you eager to finish him off,” she asked.

“I wanted the church, the magistrates, to pass judgment on him. He was happy for the church to burn innocent women for being witches. Why can’t the church do it? That way it is Aroaril passing judgment on Zorva. I will be happy to enforce the death penalty on him for them,” he said.

“No, we need to do this. If the church kills the King then that makes the Archbishop more powerful than the throne. And the nobles will never allow that. I can never allow that,” Dina said with a shake of her head. “It is too dangerous a precedent. We might as well crown the Archbishop. No, everyone will understand what had to be done. And, by killing him, we clearly take power for ourselves. None can doubt who the new rulers are.”

“But this way I am just the man who murdered the King,” he said. “I know what people are like. They cheer for me now but they can turn on me just as quickly. Aidan was the one who told the people to love me.” Although he did not say it, it also meant he must turn his back on the plan to escape to Cavan’s island. Once he killed the King, he tied himself to Gaelland forever, and made himself responsible for the people. And that was a responsibility he did not want. He did not trust himself to live up to it.