if I recall, we allow the condemned man to speak in defence before judgement!’
No comment, from Arithon. He failed to bridle. More startling still, his green eyes stayed wide-lashed. Elaira, who touched his bared heart, sensed his flicker of masked amusement.
If the High Earl suspected, he rose to the match, suave as honey spread over poison. ‘You may test his royal mettle. Push hard as you wish. The stakes are not small: his Grace has granted my son a crown prince’s oath and embraced him for Rathain as liegeman.’ A gesture towards Kyrialt forced affirmation. The young man looked peaked. He knew his father’s badgering ways: every circling feint would be closed without mercy upon the misfortunate victim.
‘If that signal honour does not bear enough weight,’ the High Earl ran on with relish, ‘Rathain’s prince has shared guest oath under my roof. Most who stand here saw him drain the cup that pledged amity! If, after all, his Grace dares to lie, as caithdein, under the law of this realm, I will be required to break him.’
The war-captain ruffled up like a falcon just hooded and leashed to the block. The chieftain beside him pursed sour lips, while a scout towards the rear hawked behind his closed fist, ready to spit at the feet of the effete royal among them.
The scarred tracker who tended the torch was first to try Erlien’s challenge. ‘We’ve got to sit through a nattering parley? Then have done! Let his Grace state his case on his merits.’
Least restrained of them all, the healer-trained grandame grumbled a withering phrase in old dialect. ‘Who trusts a man who won’t carry a weapon?’
A scout catcalled. ‘Daelion Fatemaster’s mark on my name! Should we follow a sniveller? There’s no butty born with two bollocks who shrinks at blooding cold steel on his enemies.’
Lord Erlien turned, his hawk’s profile tinged ruddy by flame-light. ‘You do have a strategy,’ he invited the prince, seated still, his laced fingers artful as sculpture. ‘We’d like to hear out your plan of attack. You’ve already said you refuse to spin Darkness. Won’t sow fear through our enemy’s ranks by means of initiate talent. If the man is too proud, and the master too scrupulous, just how do you intend to participate?’
Arithon stirred, set his feet on the ground, his unruffled humour intact. ‘I came to defend. Nor can I be badgered to raise Shadow, or cause injury for the least of your fatal offensives.’
‘Cringing daisy, I said so!’ the war-captain barked. ‘Speak fast, ere we slice you to mincemeat!’ His callused fists fended off the two chieftains who surged to draw knives for the insult.
Savagely pleased by their bursting aggression, Lord Erlien towered over the diminutive prince on the hassock. ‘Don’t claim you’ll spare Selkwood with naught but that jewelled bauble of a lyranthe?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Arithon, unperturbed. ‘She’s no pretty toy, but a masterbard’s instrument.’ Against the explosive muscle and shouts, he gave no ground, except to arise empty-handed before them. ‘You can listen! Bear witness yourselves. See if my act of protection is binding. Or you can fight and send your strongest to die! Don’t ask me, then, to applaud for the pride of walking blind in your forefathers’ footsteps.’
While the uproar redoubled, and more roughnecks ploughed forward, Kyrialt’s grip locked on his sword-hilt. Yet Lord Erlien’s voice arrested the rush to thrash Rathain’s prince for rank insolence. ‘You’d lay a singer’s warding on Selkwood?’ His surprise swept the gathering, while the crowding insurgents exclaimed with stung disbelief.
‘I’m proposing to try,’ Rathain’s crown prince appealed, then smiled with a grace to wrench heart-strings. ‘My theory can be tested tonight. If I fail, then I promise you’ll still have the time to fall back on armed force.’
‘A stripling talent can shoulder this feat?’ The war-captain’s doubtful glance darted between his High Earl and the prince, whose fine build was eclipsed by Kyrialt’s strapping prowess.
That able young liegeman refused to speak: not for a trained sorcerer whose unfathomable wiles blindsided his sire’s ferocity. Shocked quiet, but not mollified, the High Earl of Alland had to accept that brash dare at face value. His order reddened the ears of the sceptical tracker, and sent the man scurrying to fetch the heirloom lyranthe …
‘Stay with me, beloved.’ The plea crossed the empathic link of the scrying. Elaira sighed as the intimate contact cradled her like a caress.
Such flooding tenderness melted her heart, but could not unstring her concern. ‘Could I do less? The High Earl who pads at your heels is not tame. If you fail to satisfy, his wolfish following will rip you down like staked carrion. At least I’ll know where to seek your remains. That’s assuming a dismembered corpse is left to require a memorial.’
Arithon’s humour downplayed her fear. ‘If Erlien gnashes his teeth any harder, there won’t be a fang left intact for the ripe spree of slaughter.’
‘Well, Kyrialt’s worried,’ Elaira pointed out. ‘Somebody ought to be holding his sword-hand. That’s if you don’t want to drive him berserk before he can sire hale offspring.’
‘You’ve seen Glendien,’ Arithon quipped in response. ‘She’ll set him a clutch. That’s the price of mating young oak with a fire-brand.’
‘You say!’ Elaira felt her cheeks warm. ‘Clear your business in Alland. I’ll make you a blaze to torch down stars and moon.’
‘You have, love. Already. I’m branded, soul deep. If your meddling Prime Matriarch values her life, she’ll leap high and fast to dissolve every obstacle she’s raised between us.’ Which framed his bald warning: Elaira could sense the shocking, grim force behind his bed-rock sincerity. Whether the trial ahead brought him triumph, or the bitterest, agonized failure, Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn desired her presence, spun through the weave of his heart’s hope.
Just now, threat to Alland commanded priority. At one mind with her living awareness, as he had not dared to indulge since Etarra, he baited Lord Erlien’s mettlesome scouts and lured them into the deeps of Selkwood forest. Throughout, he was chaffed for his frivolous errand. Others berated his untoward character with slangs and ribald aggression.
‘If you wanted the evening to tomcat, why couldn’t you tell us you itched for a wench?’
‘No sweet pickings, there!’ someone else quipped. ‘Not since Kyrialt’s hussy got her licks in first and declared he’s got ice cubes for bollocks.’
Arithon laughed. ‘This happened after her fingers got singed?’
‘Try harder,’ jabbed Kyrialt in his wife’s defence. ‘The lady’s equipped to pick her own fights. She’d hammer Dharkaron himself, just for sport. You lot would be spurned to bay at the moon and gnaw the shat bones of the hindmost.’
Such boisterous by-play lasted until they reached the prince’s obscure destination. Broken out of the velvety murk of the pines, Arithon entered a clearing rinsed under starlight. Hush fell over the crowd at his heels. On stopped breath, their jeering stayed silenced. Ahead rose one of the moss-capped, carved stones the Ilitharis Paravian guardians had laid down to demark the sanctity of Alland’s free wilds.
Elaira divined Arithon’s intent as he knelt to unwrap his fine instrument. ‘You plan to awaken the old centaur wardings and raise the arcane defences of Selkwood Forest?’
‘I will try,’ returned Arithon, while around him, the scouts recoiled in shock as they also guessed his brash strategy.
‘Blessed Ath, you’re not serious!’ Kyrialt gasped, afraid to speak over a whisper. ‘Your Grace, do you know what you dare? Is there language to chasten such arrogance?’
For the brazen endeavour