be any less than your own?’
Mearn’s lady inclined her head. She gathered the reins of the team in firm hands, while her oddly rankled young escort clambered aboard to ride on.
Stop after stop, Fianzia heard questions and spoke, and consoled countless fretful children. Her rounds did not finish until the last hamper was emptied. By then, the late shadows bled the warmth and colour out of the teeming streets.
The wagon team climbed uphill towards home. Fionn Areth and Jeynsa sat elbow to elbow on the dropped tail-board, backs nestled against the stacked basketry, while the flies buzzed over the lees in the wine jugs. Barking dogs, the screams of scavenging gulls, and the horn-call that foreran the watch change carried through the grind of the wheels. Day fled, while the shingle roofs dropped away in stepped tiers to the patchwork of fields, far beneath.
Against the cries of a street vendor hawking two penny charms for young lovers, the goatherd laced into contention again. ‘You don’t believe that your crown prince is blameless.’
‘Did you see nothing in front of your eyes?’ Jeynsa shoved erect, cold fire in her jade eyes. ‘Do you think those families don’t deserve to survive? Or that the indulgence of one man’s sensibilities should be gratified at their expense? Why not ask Fianzia what kind of legacy she would leave to her unborn child? Life’s owed, for a life.’
Certainly, there, history spoke in support: the s’Brydion withdrawal from Lysaer’s campaign had salvaged the Master of Shadow’s entrenched fight in Vastmark. Because of Mearn’s warning, rushed out of Avenor, Tysan’s clansmen had sent the timely message that enabled Dakar to unmask the Koriani snare laid to trap Arithon at Riverton.
‘I don’t call my liege to account for the sake of position, or lineage,’ said Jeynsa s’Valerient with unblinking candour. ‘I came because I believe in defending the lives of civilians. One might ask, Fionn Areth: what besides rancour draws you?’
‘Truth,’ the mulish Araethurian insisted. ‘Since I lost a misplayed challenge at arms, I was promised the chance to determine whether your prince is a criminal killer. He’s already been condemned, by Alliance decree.’ Passion flamed, in blind disregard. ‘At heart, do you know? Is your Teir’s’Ffalenn the minion of evil declared by Lysaer as Spinner of Darkness?’
To which sweeping mouthful, Fianzia interjected, ‘Rathain’s prince is a man. Human enough to rue his mistakes and to challenge his outworn assumptions. That’s what Mearn said, when I put the question. Grandame Dawr’s tart wisdom agrees. If Liesse held the influence to batter her duke off his bone-headed complacency, I would not be lending false comfort to matrons! Alone, without loyalty to my marriage, I’d give birth at old Tirans, secure in the wilds of Atwood!’
The pinnacle towers of the citadel were bathed in the fading light of the afterglow, while twilight deepened over the outlying fields. To the captains at arms who safeguarded the ground before the remorseless advance, the swish of the crofters’ scythes through the hayfields kept time to the tramp of the Alliance troops who marched in to the boom of the drums. The enemy established their lines beyond bowshot. They raised the banners of East Halla’s towns, and other, far-northern garrisons, inbound from the sea routes past Vaststrait.
Alestron’s farm-hands set their sweating backs to their work. Strove to turn a blind eye, even while harried by the intermittent whine of an arrow, or the punching crack of loosed crossbolts as hostile archers tested their range. The grain shocks were gathered and tied. Fodder was roped onto carts under torch-light, while across the plain, more fires lit the enemy, swarming to close for the siege.
‘They’ll have us bottled within a few days,’ observed the grizzled scout, arrived overdue with fresh blood on his hands to recite his dismal report. ‘Time to leave them a singeing wee present and run, if you’ll hear my considered opinion.’
Keldmar laughed. ‘Soon enough, laddie! Get along. Clean your knives. Rest and grab a hot meal.’ To Vhandon, who leaned with his back to a sheep-gate, taciturn as weathered teak, he mused, ‘Damn well not soon enough to sow havoc!’
The craggy field-captain never minced words. ‘You’ve planned your parting gift for these invaders?’
‘Haven’t we just!’ Keldmar’s raffish stubble split with delight. ‘The cook’s cobbled up a spiked broth to be left on the hobs in the farm-wives’ kitchens. Tastes like your granny’s savoury soup. Goes down slick as butter besides. Too late, the Light’s dupes’ll be gushing like gossips, but from the duff end, doubled at the latrines.’
‘Ath wept!’ Vhandon had always been sharp on his feet. ‘He used unboiled swamp water?’
Keldmar’s smile turned evil. ‘Dysentery’s no damned fun in the field. Make a few whimpering pansies bolt for home, once their bung-holes chap raw and start bleeding. And anyway, bowmen cramped up with the squirts will have a rough time taking aim.’ His sideward squint narrowed. ‘Are you frisky, tonight? I’ve an errand needs running inside enemy lines.’
‘Never ask,’ Vhandon stated. ‘My troop’s at the ready.’
They would be more than keen; Keldmar’s sibling had once loaned this war-captain to Arithon to clear a debt for mishandling. The veteran campaigner had been returned, but resharpened: depth now ran beneath that straight-thinking intelligence.
Though Keldmar shared the s’Brydion penchant for armed force, he was not the brainless brawn he appeared, to blindside his opponents. As he realized the older man measured his mood, he looked away.
‘I want you to go in yourself,’ he declared. ‘Have the villagers’ hedge witch fashion some talismans to muddle Lysaer’s sighted priests. Then pick ten from your company and find out when the false avatar plans to arrive.’
Vhandon took pause. Then he said, gently blunt, ‘Since my presence should not be required for that mission, what do you fear to expose?’
Keldmar’s frown tightened. He was never easy with intimate questions. Vhandon was his elder by more than ten years; had been the mentor he had stretched to match in callow youth as example. Never Bransian’s prized field officer by accident, all but a part of the family, now Vhandon was given the role of a scout whose assignment ran beyond dangerous.
‘Why?’ Vhandon prompted, as silence extended, thick with the tang of banked cookfires, and the musty scent after hard frost. ‘What do you dread for me, or yourself?’
‘Avenger’s own death!’ Keldmar swore. ‘I’d not send you to a sure end as a suicide!’
‘No,’ Vhandon agreed. Tonight, against his natural grain, he let down his granite mask. ‘But both of us have too much seasoned experience. Survival may force me to return your answer by signal arrow, then stage my escape through the far side of the lines. If you want me shut safely out of this war, I deserve to know what you’re thinking.’
Keldmar recoiled, then curbed his venomous retreat. ‘Ath, I can’t hide this! We’ve fought at each other’s shoulder for too long.’ How he hated to grapple the emotions he preferred to vent, picking blustering fights. ‘You realize Jeynsa’s decision must break Prince Arithon’s ultimatum. With his Grace gone, you freely gave your loyalty back to Alestron. But sitting here, I don’t know how to ask what you feel.’ Anguished, he clenched the fists crossed at his knee. ‘Are you fighting because Bransian gave no other choice? Or do you honestly think we can win this?’
Before Vhandon’s response, Keldmar smashed on, ‘If the Master of Shadow returns to spare Jeynsa, how will you reconcile your split allegiance?’ Then, ‘No!’ he snapped, over stripped nerves and hurt, ‘No, don’t speak! I’ve granted you space to choose your own fate because I don’t want to hear how you’ll answer!’
‘I’ll tell you, anyway,’ Vhandon persisted. ‘Doubt packs more damage, kept secret.’ His stalwart manner ploughed on with an eloquent care that was new. ‘I don’t know what the future will bring us, or what fate may befall your brothers. But