Days Of Light And Shadow (24 page)

And soon he was going to have to add to them. He was going to have to tell her of what he had heard in the Royal Chamber. Of the false document Y’aris had had prepared for Tenir to see. Of Y’aris’ blaming her brother for the loss of the war. And of Finell’s intention to restart the war as soon as he had the ability. And the tears would flow all over again.

This wasn’t the marriage anyone would have hoped for.

Chapter Thirty Seven.

Herodan was nervous when he entered the King’s Court. Summoned at such an hour, all but dragged out of his bed, rushed across the city by the guards, still half dressed, and then whisked through the palace, it had to be serious. It had to be bad. Everything was bad of late.

Since his cousin had launched his terrible war of vengeance it seemed there was no good left in the world. Not in Elaris. Not in Irothia. And he was the one caught in the middle. Trapped between the two realms and the two rulers. Having to try and justify Finell’s terrible attacks to the very angry king, all while receiving pigeons from his high lord that made no sense.

Finell kept denying the attacks, even when it was ludicrous. They had the survivors of many of the attacks in the city now, living as refugees, and all of them told the same terrible tale of his people clad in black, killing everyone they could find and then burning what they left behind. Herodan had sent the high lord pigeon after pigeon relating that same information. And in return he got madness. There could be no denial, yet that was exactly what his high lord demanded him to do.

After that had come further insanity as Finell sent him demand after demand to lay at the king’s feet, accusations of battles and atrocities committed that Herrick denied vehemently. It was as though the two rulers could agree on nothing. That they were fighting two completely different wars.

By the Mother he hoped that this wasn’t going to be another day of foolish lies and unholy accusations that he had to keep repeating.

But at least the throne room was empty. The nobles of the court were likely tucked up in their beds, though in his years in the city he had come to observe that it usually wasn’t their own ones. The nobles of Tendarin seemed to delight in bed hopping. A dishonourable practice that it had taken him a long time to learn to ignore. But in time he had come to realise that although many of these people did shameful things, he could quite like them. Even learn to respect them. They weren’t elves. What they did was what they did. Their philandering had nothing to do with him.

Instead of a court Herodan discovered that he only had to face the king and a small group of advisors. That should have been a good thing. But King Herrick looked furious. Even more so than normal. And the advisors were standing there with heavy tomes of ancient law open wide. None of them looked particularly happy either. Obviously they were discussing something that Finell had done, and typically his cousin had failed to tell him of it in advance.

The guards escorted him to the throne, a journey that as usual he didn’t want to make.

“Your Highness.” He managed his usual bow, and did his best to keep his face expressionless.

“What does this mean?” The king angrily thrust the piece of paper in front of his nose for him to read, even before he’d finished bowing, and it took him aback. The king was never in that much of a hurry, and normally he handed documents to one of his attendants who carried it to him. But still Herodan took the piece of paper and started reading. It took his eyes a moment to take in the words in the subdued light of the palace. But when he did, when he saw what his high lord had written, Herodan wished he hadn’t.

“Dear Mother! No! My sister! No!” It was unimaginable. It was evil beyond words. And yet it was written down on the piece of paper for all to read. And sealed with the high lord’s own herald. It could only be true.

The blood drained from his face, he felt weak at the knees, and for the first time Herodan was almost grateful that he had guards on both sides waiting to grab him. Though their task was actually to make sure he didn’t attack the king, maybe they could also catch him before he hit the marble floor. If they felt like it.

But for Sophelia to be so casually sacrificed. For House Vora to be disgraced. It was unthinkable. A house was only as good as those it welcomed into its embrace, and Iros wasn’t even of a house at all.

“Your sister?” The king looked angry as he chewed away on the corner of his white moustache as he often did. And maybe even a touch unsure, and that was something he never was. In all the years he had been living in Tendarin, that he had been serving in the Royal Court as the envoy for his people, Herodan had never seen the slightest suggestion of doubt in him. He never mulled over a decision. He never worried about it. He acted, and that was the end of the matter.

“Sophelia of House Vora, my sister and the cousin of High Lord Finell of House Vora.” The words came out of his mouth as though someone else was speaking them, and he wished they wouldn’t. Speaking them only made the words real.

“But what does it mean?” King Herrick yelled it at him as if that would help. Or maybe he was just angry. Now that the war was finally going his way, the thought of peace surely wasn’t on his mind. Herodan understood that only too well. The king was angry. More than angry. His kingdom had been attacked, his people killed, and all the while High Lord Finell had sent him obvious lies and denials. Day after day of them.

He wanted blood. He wanted vengeance. He wanted Finell to swing from the battlements by his neck. Or to feed the rats. And above all else he did not want peace. But peace was what was being called for, and by the most ancient of codes, the request had to be heard and if it was genuine and not some terrible ruse, it had to be honoured. That was why the advisors were desperately studying the tomes of ancient laws. The king wanted a way out. And as shameful as things were, Herodan knew he couldn’t let him find one.

“It means that High Lord Finell is truthful in his request your majesty. My sister is his cousin. She is of the same house, and so for her to wed a man not of a proper house is a great shame upon her. Upon all of House Vora including Finell. And she was promised to another. House Allel will rightfully be angered by this. They will demand compensation from House Vora. This is not something that the high lord would do lightly.” But even as he spoke Herodan was worried that it might be. Terrified in sooth. Finell was not the child he had been, his heart beat basilisk blood and his soul was dark. It could actually be some sort of ruse. He could have happily sacrificed his own cousin, shamed his own family, just to play some political game. By the Mother he hoped and prayed it wasn’t, but Herodan knew it could be.

“Curse him!” Herrick let out his frustration and anger for all to hear. And if they didn’t he repeated it a few more times at even greater volume, his voice echoing through the vast halls and hallways of Castle Storm. He wanted nothing of peace. Not when he was within months or even weeks of having Finell dangling from a rope from his battlements or being consumed alive by rats. But he also honoured the ancient codes. They were what had held all the realms together for thousands of years, and he would not put them aside lightly. Only Finell would do that.

“What manner of vile serpent is your cousin? What poxy soul fills him? He has started a war of utmost indecency. His soldiers have committed atrocity after atrocity. He has broken the most ancient of codes. He has burned my mission, tortured and all but killed my envoy, murdered his parents, and now he sacrifices his cousin to save his worthless hide.” The king fixed him with an angry glare as if he was somehow responsible and it took every bit of will Herodan possessed not to step backwards.

“Majesty -.”

“No!” The king shouted his angry denial loudly enough to wake the dead not to mention the rest of the castle. Most importantly though, it was loud enough to stop Herodan speaking, and he was grateful for that. He did not want to defend Finell just then. Not when he had hurt his sister so terribly.

“This is a travesty! It’s an outrage! And I don’t believe a word of it!” Herodan couldn’t disagree with him on any of that, so he kept his peace and waited for the king to calm down. He had to wait quite a while as the king swore at the walls.

“By the nine hells I will honour this because I have no choice. But I do not respect it! I do not respect your worthless toad lord! Tell him that. Word for word.”

“And tell him this also. There will be reparations. There will be consequences for the foul deeds of his armies. His armies will be disbanded and their leaders will swing from my gallows for their crimes. Any of his black clad monsters that still remain in Irothia will drop their weapons on the ground and return to Elaris forthwith. If they carry so much as a dagger on them in my land they will hang. And above all there will be apologies. From him.”

“Tell him this and make sure he hears it. If I am to be denied the pleasure of witnessing his worthless corpse being slowly consumed by vermin, I will not be denied the satisfaction of seeing him on his hands and knees before me, apologising for his evil!”

“If he wants to keep his neck the same length he will agree to my demand. If he wants not to sleep with vermin he will do it. He will be before me within four moons, prostrate on this very floor in front of all the lords and ladies of my realm, and he will admit his crimes and his lies, and he will apologise for them.”

“On this there will be no negotiation. Do you hear me envoy?”

“Yes Your Highness.” Shocked beyond measure by the outrageous demands Herodan somehow managed to nod respectfully to King Herrick, just before the king nodded to the guards and they grabbed him by the shoulders and started dragging him away. And yet even as Herodan was being dragged out of the throne room, still trying to make sense of everything that had happened, a part of him was wondering if the king could add a public flogging to the list of demands. Or if he could simply tack it on himself.

It seemed the least he could do.

Chapter Thirty Eight.

“Whoa.” The leader of the guards riding at the front held up his hand, and the caravan creaked to a halt at the top of the rise overlooking the valley and the distant town beyond.

Greenlands. Sophelia stared at it in the distance, her heart sinking. Her new home was in sight.

A journey that had begun in shame, more than she could have imagined would ever be hers, had finally reached its end. And it had begun so badly when Iros had told her of what he had heard in the Royal Chamber. Her brother in danger. Their marriage merely a reprieve in a war that Finell had no intention of ending even if she finally had some overheard word that he was still alive. Her father lied to with a forged document. She had wanted to call Iros a liar. She’d needed to doubt him. But deep down she’d known he spoke the truth. She only hoped that her family had known it too. She’d told them what she could, between tears, and in the short day between their marriage and their leaving the following morning. But to believe such evil of one of their house was hard.

Now that had been a day from the demons. Even the Father would have wept. Iros, even as he’d tried to tell her what he knew, had been dragged away by the healers for another night in their clutches, leaving her with her family and friends. Her friends had vanished quickly, they simply couldn’t face her. Her family had cried rivers of tears. And out in the city everyone had known her shame. They’d said nothing to her, but they’d stared as she’d made the long walk back to her family home, their embarrassed eyes letting her know of her fall.

And House Vora had been punished even on that first day. House Allel had revoked its promise as was always going to happen. And by the time she’d boarded the wagon, threats of legal action had already been made. And as for her promised, she hadn’t seen him. She hadn’t expected to. Berris had been humiliated by her actions. Cast aside for a husband of no house and not even of the people. Spurned. Feuds had begun for less. She didn’t love Berris, barely even knew him, but the disgrace cast upon him and his house was enough to make her want to run and hide.

All the other houses, both great and small, had immediately begun reconsidering their relationships with House Vora. Trading agreements, promises of marriage, contracts for everything from hunting rights to positions of authority, all were being reviewed. Many would be rewritten, and not in their favour. Others would be torn up.

Until her marriage House Vora had been a house of unsullied honour and unchallenged virtue. Since then neither was true. Everything their house was, all that it stood for, had been tarnished by her marriage.

In the end boarding the wagon the following day had almost come as a relief. Anything was better than staying. And yet maybe not the town in front of them.

“Sophelia?” Rial was concerned for some reason by their stopping, but then her attendant was very young and journeying through a strange land when she had never before left Leafshade. Everything worried her. But Sophelia was less concerned by the fact that they had stopped than by what she could see in front of them. Greenlands.

The town that the province was named for. Though the scholars had told her before she left that it was actually a small city. Up to thirty thousand people lived within its walls at certain times of the year. But for some reason the humans refused to even call it a city. They believed that too grandiose a title in a land of small towns, hamlets and villages. They refused to even give the city a name of its own. The city was Greenlands. The province was Greenlands. Even their scholars didn’t know why that was. They just said it was a human thing. That it had been that way for a long time.

She wished she’d studied more of the human lands. Of Irothia. But she hadn’t. Her parents had always thought it was best to stick to the traditional ways. And so as a girl she had been taught of poetry, history and art. Of gardening and tradition and keeping a house. They had shown her a little of the sciences and magic. And of course the elders and priests had instructed her in the ways of the Mother. Meanwhile as a member of House Vora she had been taught mathematics and book keeping. By most standards she was well raised. Properly educated. But nothing in her life had taught her of what life would be like in Greenlands. The most she knew of the province was the likely tariffs a trader would have to pay to set up a stall in the local markets and the goods most prized by the people.

This was her first time in the human realm. Her first time anywhere out of Leafshade, just like her worried attendants. She should have looked forwards to the journey, but she hadn’t. She had feared it. Feared the thought of shadow monkeys in the trees, and dire wolves in the grasslands. Feared brigands too, since she had heard they wandered the borderlands. But none of those had shown themselves. And yet the journey had been still more frightening than she’d expected. More terrible.

So many towns destroyed. Elven towns, human towns, it made no difference. The short war had destroyed them all.

In many of the towns though, the people had fled leaving behind only bodies. So many bodies. A few in the elven towns, so many more in the human ones. Exactly as the envoy had claimed. So as they’d journeyed from Elaris into Irothia, the reaper’s touch had grown steadily heavier.

Many of the dead were blackened by the sun and bloated with the diseases of death. Many were in pieces, the scavengers having got at them. And many were mercifully blackened by fire. But still they were obviously bodies. Men, women and children, human and elf, all dead, and through no fault of their own. These were not the soldiers who had fought the war. They were the victims.

With each new town that they had come across, the smell had struck at the nose, and the sight had torn at the heart, and she’d begged for the drivers to hurry through. There had been nothing for them to do save leave.

The same was true outside of the towns. The province was a land of rolling green hills and valleys, fields of crops. But now it was filled with burnt out farm houses, blackened fields, and dead animals. Its blue skies were darkened with carrion crows for as far as the eye could see, while wild dogs and jackals prowled the land. Why had the soldiers killed farmers? They posed no threat. Or the children? And so many of those bodies were far too small to be anything else. What possible reason was there for that? For burning their homes, killing their animals and setting fire to their fields?

It was madness. Surely the soldiers had breathed of the moon mist daily. But what had Finell breathed? He had denied the reports even though he had to have known the truth. He had cast Iros of Drake out of the Royal Chamber for speaking that truth. And at the time she like the rest had applauded his expulsion. Now having journeyed through Greenlands, she could finally see that terrible truth for herself and she knew that her husband had been right. It was her cousin that should have been expelled.

But still there had been nothing to be done on the trail. There had been no one to help. She could not say a prayer for the dead because these people were not followers of the Mother. They could not bury the bodies because they were just too numerous. And the crows and vultures would have been upset at being denied their food. And when she arrived in the city there would still be nothing she could do. She could not send a letter home, because she was a shamed woman. No longer a high born. No longer a member of House Vora. Unnamed. Her word would mean nothing. It could not be used as evidence in the court. And it would only cause her family more pain.

Maybe she could finally send a message to her brother though. Now that she was no longer in Elaris. Though she really didn’t know why the messages between him and the family had stopped. She suspected it had something to do with her cousin and not the war as he claimed. He had already lied about so much, that it was hard to believe any word that had come from his mouth.

It had been a journey of nightmare. But finally now that they’d reached Greenlands, the heart of the province and its largest town or city, and also the home of the only castle in the region, she could hope it was ended. Here at least she’d thought, the war would not have touched the people. Here at least she’d hoped that she would find a place she could one day call home. But when she finally set eyes upon the walled city she knew she was wrong. Her journey into misery had barely begun.

“Please Mother!” Sophelia whispered the small prayer as she looked ahead at the distant town on the gentle green hill and the castle that crowned it for the first time in her life and her heart sank. This was the heart of Greenlands, and it was every bit as terrifying as she’d feared. A strange city in a strange land.

She could see massive stone walls and the gigantic stone fortress in the distance, and she wanted to weep for the very wrongness of it. It was crude and ugly, oversized and it sat upon the hill like a sleeping giant, crushing the land underneath. It was everything that Leafshade was not. Brutish and coarse, a town not of beauty but war.

But what made things worse was that she could see that Finell’s armies had been through the province, even this far north, just as the guards had said. As Pita had reported. And they’d done harm to the land every bit as terrible as that which they’d already passed through. As awful as could be imagined.

The fields were no longer green. They were black. For as far as the eye could see, from the crest of the hill they’d just crossed to the town and the castle on the other side of the huge valley, it was black. League upon league of burnt crops. It seemed that when they’d finally reached the heart of the province, Finell’s watchmen had decided to destroy everything. Even the land. It was a monstrous evil. How could elves do such things? How could he have ordered them to? But of course that was barely the beginning of what the soldiers had done.

Here and there, dotted among the blackened fields she could see more houses. The homes of the crofters and farmers who had made this huge valley their home. All of them were black too, burnt out, just like all the others they had passed. But in this valley at least, someone had been out to visit them after the fighting had ended. And from the yellow flags flying beside all of the houses, people had died in them. Hundreds of homes, hundreds of yellow flags, hundreds of deaths. And this was just one valley in one province.

The city too had been attacked. Even in the far distance she could see how the stone walls were blackened. Huge black scorch marks painted over the dull grey stone. She could just make out tall buildings with their tops missing, roofs eaten away by fire. Sophelia was certain that as they drew closer, it would only get worse.

And this was now her home.

Sophelia wondered how Iros must have felt as he took in the sight. If he was even awake. First the terrible news of his family, news that the high lord had delivered to him in person as they’d left the city bound for their new home. Finell had been all but gloating as he told Iros that both his parents and his sister had died in the war. Pretending sympathy, but no one was fooled by him. He was black blood.

Something had broken in Iros that day. Something deep within him. A part of his soul had crumbled away before her eyes. And yet he had still somehow found the strength to thank Finell for his kindness in breaking the news to him. He was not of her people, but in that moment she’d realised one thing. He was better than them. Or maybe their high lord, the one who was supposed to be the very embodiment of an elf, was worse. Maybe her cousin was actually a changeling.

Some claimed that the Father sometimes sent them among them. Cuckoo’s eggs to be raised in unsuspecting homes, so that they could in time become more attendants for him. But even attendants weren’t evil. They weren’t good either. They simply didn’t care about such matters. Finell though, he was a monster.

Since then, she’d hardly spoken to Iros. He’d spent most of his time either asleep in the wagon he had been given, or grieving. Hopefully healing from his dreadful wounds, though in the weeks that they had travelled north she had seen little sign of that. He just lay in his wagon, looking more and more like a corpse with every day that had passed, even as the healers tended to him. She had feared as they’d ridden over the weeks that his wagon might soon become a funeral carriage.

It had frightened her to think of it, but she’d known that she could have arrived in this human land, an elf, the Lady Sophelia of Drake and Lady of Greenlands in a land that surely hated her kind, and a widow all at once. The Mother only knew what would happen to her then. But now at least it seemed that Iros would live long enough to see his home again. To see the graves of his family. That was surely a mercy.

Of course before then things had to be done. She knew that as she watched the healers - physicians they were called in this strange land - trying to rouse her husband in the lead wagon. They were pushing strange herbs under his nose, slapping his cheeks and lifting him up. They had tried the same many times before, and each time she’d wondered if they would fail. If her husband was finally dead. But each time they had somehow roused him, and this time was no different.