Destiny: Child Of Sky (21 page)

Outside the wall what remained of the Sorbold column, now unfettered by Llauron's intervention of wolves and weather, was marching, walking, limping, crawling resolutely forward, one by one, into the rain of arrows from the archers atop the wall. Stephen shuddered at the utter lifelessness of their eyes, the relentlessness of their intentions. Only a few dozen remained of the attacking force; the cavalry had been decimated by the archers, and a hundred riderless horses were milling about aimlessly on the bloody field.

The Master of the Wall made his way to Stephen's side, and stood silently, staring, as the duke did, out onto the field beyond the wall.

After a moment Stephen found his voice; his throat was dry and tight, so it sounded young and frightened to his ears. He coughed, and spoke again.

'Command half your men to rescue what stragglers they can—lower down pikes, anything, just get the few that remain inside the wall."

'Why aren't they retreating?“ the Master of the Wall wondered aloud. "They are marching right into the flights of arrows."

Stephen shuddered, fighting back grisly memories. “They will continue to do so, I fear, until the last man is dead. Tell your archers to train their arrows on the catapults, and pick off as many as you can there. I will have the commander of the third regiment send a force out to capture them. In the meantime, instruct the archers to aim to injure, not to kill. We need to capture some of the Sorbolds alive and try to make some sense of this nightmare." The Master of the Wall nodded, and disappeared from Stephen's peripheral vision as he continued to stare out over the atrocity that only a moment ago had been the solstice festival. The bright colored banners still flapped, tattered, in the stiff, smoky breeze, the glistening maypole ribbons continued to spin merrily in the wind, black with soot.

He already knew what the Sorbolds would say.

Why?

I don't know, m'lord. I don't remember.

The library at Haguefort was enormous, with high ceilings that reflected the slightest sound. Footsteps echoed on the marble floor, swallowed intermittently by the silk rugs. A slight cough or the clearing of the throat could be heard in all corners of the vast room.

Despite those sensitive acoustics, not a sound was audible now save for the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock.

Cedric Canderre sat heavily on one of the leather sofas near the fireplace, staring blankly into the flames, his face decades older than it had been that morning.

Beside him sat Quentin Baldasarre, Duke of Bethe Corbair, Dun-stin's brother. His silence was very different; his eyes were gleaming with a light that barely contained its wrath, and even his silent breathing was tinged with fury. Lanacan Orlando, the benison of his province, who sat in the wing chair next to him awkwardly patting his hand in an attempt to comfort him, was growing more nervous by the moment. When Quentin finally waved him away angrily, Orlando seemed almost relieved.

Ihrman Karsrick, the Duke of Yarim, poured himself another full glass of brandy, noting that Stephen's decanter was in sorry need of refilling. He alone among the dukes of Roland had not suffered the loss of a relative or close friend, though the head of the winning sledge team, a popular guild member in his province and his personal blacksmith, had died in the attack.

The holy men had been inept at dispensing comfort, in Karsrick's opinion; Colin Abernathy had been unable to stop weeping for more than a few moments.

Lanacan Orlando, generally considered a great healer and source of consolation, was clearly irritating his duke far more than he was helping him. Philabet Griswold, the pompous Blesser of Avonderre-Navarne, had begun pontificating about Sorbold and the need for an immediate retaliation earlier but was glared into silence by Stephen Navarne, a member of his own See. Stephen was currently elsewhere looking in on his children and the makeshift hospital wards that had been set up within his holdings to tend to the wounded. Nielash Mousa, the Blesser of Sorbold, was sitting isolated in a corner, his dark skin pale and clammy. Only Ian Steward seemed calm.

The door of the library opened and Tristan Steward entered, closing it quietly behind him. He had excused himself to look in on Madeleine and the wounded from his province, and had been meeting in the courtyard below with the captains of his regiments. His face was a mask of .calm as he entered the room, but Karsrick could tell from the look in his eye that he was planning something, biding his time to reveal it.

Martin Ivenstrand, the Duke of Avonderre, stood up as Tristan passed.

'The casualties, Tristan—how bad?"

'Over four hundred dead, twice that many more injured," Tristan said, coming to a stop before the wooden stand that contained Stephen's prized atlas from Serendair.

The ancient manuscript was covered with a glass dome in order to protect the fragile pages of the charts that depicted the long-dead island from the ravages of time. Ironic, Tristan thought absently. A carefully preserved map of a world that died a thousand years ago. Directions to nowhere.

'Sweet All-God," murmured Nielash Mousa, the Blesser of Sorbold.

'Is that a benediction, or a plea for forgiveness?" snapped Philabet Griswold, the Blesser of Avonderre-Navarne.

Karsrick's eyes, along with all the others in the room, riveted onto the two holy men, bitter enemies and hostile contenders behind the scenes for the sole right to wear the Patriarch's Ring of Wisdom, white robes, and star-shaped talisman. With word coming out of Sepulvarta that the Patriarch was in his last days, the feud between the two men had heated to boiling. Throughout the festival they had gibed and sniped at each other, preening and positioning themselves with various nobles, speaking in furtive discussions, meeting secretly.

All the posturing was certainly a waste of time as far as Karsrick understood. The Patriarch could name his own successor, and pass his ring on to the benison of his choice, though the declaration did not seem to be forthcoming. If he did not do so, the great scales of Jierna Tal, the Place of Weight, would decide, with the ancient Ring of Wisdom balancing on one of the plates and the man it was judging on the other. Either way, the efforts of the two holy men to consolidate power seemed futile.

At the festival Griswold had appeared to have the upper hand. He was by far the most powerful benison in Roland, a fact that was magnified because the carnival taking place was within his See. Insiders at the Patriarch's manse, however, whispered rumors that Mousa, the only non-Cymrian benison, and the Blesser of an entire country, was the Patriarch's favored choice. In addition, if the decision of ascendancy were to go to the scales, it would certainly not weigh against Mousa that Jierna Tal was in Sorbold.

Whatever favor Mousa might have held before the festival, and whatever pleasure he might have drawn from those rumors, was gone now. While no one had broken the silence in the library in deference to the grief of Cedric Canderre and Quentin Baldasarre, it was clear by the almost-visible frost in the air where the clergy and nobility of Roland placed the blame for the attack. The Blesser of Sorbold. a normally unflappable man with dusky skin and a bland expression, had gone gray in the face. That face was puckered in worried lines and dotted with anxious perspiration.

He rose slowly now from his seat as Griswold approached.

'This—this was an inexplicable act,“ he said, resting his hand on the table beside him for balance. "Sorbold—the Crown, that is—knows nothing of this, I'm certain." He anxiously fingered the holy amulet around his neck, its talisman shaped like the earth.

Griswold crossed his arms over his chest, causing the amulet he wore, with its talisman shaped like a drop of water, to clink soundly. “It would certainly seem that an action involving an entire column of royal soldiers might have at least a suggestion of permission from the prince or the empress," he said haughtily.

“Particularly one that violates peace treaties and commits atrocities upon the citizens of a neighboring land—a formerly allied nation." He came to a halt in front of his nemesis as the Blesser of Sorbold drew himself up to his full height and turned to face the others.

'I can assure you that this heinous attack was not sanctioned by the government of Sorbold,“ Mousa said, his voice betraying none of the anxiety apparent in his features. "Let me state emphatically that Sorbold wishes no hostility with Roland, nor with any of its other neighbors. And even if it did, the Crown Prince has been keeping vigil at the sickbed of his mother, Her Serenity, the Dowager Empress, and would certainly not have chosen this time to attack."

'How can you say that for certain?" sneered Griswold.

' am here, for the love of the All-God!“ Mousa growled. "Do you think they would risk the life of their only benison this way?"

'Perhaps the Crown Prince is trying to tell you something," Griswold suggested.

Mousa's dusky face flushed with dark anger. "Void take you, Griswold! If you don't choose to believe in my worth to my See, let me at least assure you that if Sorbold had decided to attack Roland, we would have done so with one hundred times the force you saw today! You fool! Our own people were here at the festival!

You have excused away all of the assaults that have been perpetrated on citizens of Tyrian and other Orlandan provinces by your own people as 'random' or

'inexplicable'—you've never taken responsibility for any of that violence! Yet you cannot accept that this is exactly the same?“ "It's not the same," said Stephen Navarne quietly. The others turned to see the master of Haguefort standing in the open doorway. He had entered so silently that none had heard him come in.

The Duke of Navarne crossed the enormous room and came to stand directly in front of Nielash Mousa, who had gone pale again at his words. Stephen brought his hand awkwardly to rest on the benison's upper arm and found it to be trembling.

'It's not the same, because hithertofore there have been no incursions from Sorbold—this is the first I know of. The fact that whatever madness has been causing these attacks has spread to Sorbold is most disturbing, though not altogether unexpected. Up until now it limited itself to Tyrian and Roland."

'And Ylorc,“ said Tristan Steward firmly. "I told you last summer that the Bolg had attacked my citizens, and you all chose to disregard me.“ "King Achmed denied it," said Quentin Baldasarre. Tristan's eyes blazed. He reached into his boot and pulled forth a small, three-bladed throwing knife, and threw it at Baldasarre's feet, where it clanged against the stone floor.

'He also denied selling weapons to Sorbold. See how much his word is worth.“ The Lord Roland regarded Baldasarre coldly. "In your case, Quentin, you purchased that worthless word at the cost of your brother's life."

Baldasarre was off the leather couch and halfway across the room as the last words came from Tristan's mouth, his muscles coiled in fury. Lanacan Orlando had managed to grasp the duke's arm and was pulled along with the force of his stride, and now interposed himself between Tristan and Quentin. “Please," the benison whispered. “No more violence; please. Do not desecrate your brother's memory in your anger, my son."

'He is in the warmth of the Afterlife, having saved us all," said Ian Steward.

'Dunstin Baldasarre died a hero's death,“ Philabet Griswold intoned. "As did Andrew Canderre," Ian Steward added quickly. Cedric Canderre opened his mouth to speak, but his words were stifled by the creak of the double doors as they opened, admitting Llauron, the Invoker of the Filids. The Invoker's chiefs had been lending aid to Stephen's forces, Khaddyr tending to the wounded alongside the healers of Navarne, while Gavin led the reconnaissance that was assessing the Sorbold attack. Llauron nodded to Stephen, then made his way quietly to the sideboard beside Ihrman Karsrick and poured himself a last finger of brandy, emptying the decanter.

When Cedric Canderre found his voice, it was steady, belying the pain in his eyes.

'I don't wish to debate this further,“ he said flatly. "Madeleine and I need to return to my lands, to prepare for Andrew's interment, and to comfort the Lady Jecelyn."

He cleared his throat, and cast a pointed glance at his fellow dukes, then looked to Ian Steward, the benison of Canderre-Yarim. “She is going to need much support and consolation, Your Grace. She expects Andrew's child in autumn."

A heavy silence fell, echoing through the library, as the holy men and regents looked at each other. Finally Tristan Steward spoke.

'Have no fear, Cedric. Madeleine and I will see to the child's needs and education as if it were Andrew's right-born heir."

Canderre's head snapped back as if he had been struck. Stephen Navarne felt his fists unconsciously clench in anger at Tristan's words; the Lord Roland had just named the child as Andrew's bastard. The implication was lost on none of the men present: by right of succession Madeleine, and by extension, upon their marriage, Tristan, was now heir to Canderre, not Andrew's unborn child.

Quentin Baldasarre, Andrew's cousin, already furious at Tristan, stepped forward angrily again, only to have his arm caught by Lanacan Orlando, his benison.

'The child will be Sir Andrew's right-born heir, my son,“ Orlando said calmly to Tristan, his voice no longer quaking as it had the moment before. He turned to the clergy and the provincial leaders. "I presided over the marriage of Sir Andrew and Lady Jecelyn in secret last summer. Their union was blessed; the Unification ritual was performed. As result, any child of their union is legitimate, and the right-born heir of Cedric Canderre." The firelight glinted off the chain around his neck, which bore no talisman in representation of the wind.

Stephen glanced at Llauron, but the Invoker showed no sign of surprise, or even interest; rather, he inhaled the bouquet of his brandy and took a sip from the snifter. Andrew had said nothing of his marriage to Stephen.

Tristan seemed shocked, while his brother, Ian, normally placid, grew red in the face. The spiral of red jewels in the sun-shaped talisman around his neck flashed angrily in the firelight as well.