Mordraud, Book One (81 page)

“
Eldain was working on something... Look...” Berg called them round the table, pointing to the pieces the nobleman had left on the maps. “This is Cambria... and here are marked the woods around the Hann Passage, where it becomes Camhann, through the Chestnut Gorge, and the paths to reach the ravine. For love of the Gods...”

“
He was studying how to attack Cambria,” Adraman concluded, in a wisp of a voice. Nobody spoke for a long while. He was the one to break the silence, lifting his thunderstruck face.

“
Berg, call an assembly. We need to talk to our men, and quickly. Mordraud...”

“
Yes?” the young man replied, his eyes fixed on the map.

“
Inform the court and summon the servants. Eldain is to be prepared for public display.”

“
But Adraman... I’m not sure that’s a good idea...” Mordraud attempted.

“
Let the people mourn their father. We cannot pretend nothing has happened.” Adraman’s expression was hard and strained, but nonetheless steeped in new determination. Just what everybody expected of him, at that very dramatic and delicate time.

‘
He seems so similar to Eldain, now...’

“
For better or worse, from now on things will no longer be as they were before,” Eld’s new ruler pronounced.

***

“Adraman? Is that you?”

Deanna blinked away the sleep.
She’d nodded off without realising it, in her favourite armchair in the lounge, while feeding the baby. Mordraud’s mouth was at her breast but he’d stopped suckling and had dozed off. A draught over the bare skin on her bosom made her shiver. The door behind her had opened, and someone had entered the room.

“
Adraman?” she asked again, in a pasty tone.

“
It’s me.”

She hadn
’t heard his voice for so long, a very long time. Deanna started, waking the infant, who whimpered and went back to his milk from the naked breast.

“
What are you doing here?”

“
I’ve missed you...”

“
I haven’t missed you,” she returned icily. “Now leave.”

Mordraud
was behind her, and she did nothing to turn round. She did not want to see him. She wasn’t sure she was able to keep up that silly farce.

“
I just want to know.”

It wasn
’t his usual tone of voice. He was weeping. Deanna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded slowly.

“
I already know what your question is... The answer is yes.”

“
So he’s...”

“
Don’t even try to say it in front of the child! Nobody must know,
ever
! Do you hear me?!”

Mordraud
placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed tightly. Deanna jumped again, but didn’t look up. She was on the brink of giving way. She gritted her teeth, and swallowed down the words she couldn’t say out loud. Thoughts that would ruin her life forever.

But
that would also free her from all her fears.

“
Now, please leave, I ask you. If Adraman were to see you here, now, near me while I feed his... our son...”

Mordraud
bent his head and kissed her. Deanna didn’t push him away, enjoying that moment she had so craved. The baby smiled contentedly and grasped his father’s hair.

“
Goodbye, Deanna.”

After
a caress for his son, Mordraud left in silence. Deanna burst into tears only once she’d heard the door shut again.

“
And what are you looking at?!” she stammered through her sobs. The baby beamed another time, and leant out of her arms, stretching his hands towards the door.

“
He won’t be back again, and you’ll have to accept that,” she sputtered, bloated with a corrosive, acidic frustration she was unable to control.

“
Now you’re Adraman’s son alone.”

Deanna
got up, left young Mordraud on the armchair, and approached the wall. Then she came back, as far as the door. She reached out for the handle, stopped, then returned to pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. She thrust her hands into her hair, shifting her eyes from the door to the child, who watched her as he lolled on the cushion. He was identical to his father. A few more years and anyone would notice it.

Anyone
.

It was then
Deanna broke out screaming, her head resting on the hard wood of the door.

A shrill and desperate cry that shook her stomach and
stormed through her throat.

***

Throughout the entire town, fires were put out, shops were closed and all business ceased – even the most routine. The women left their washing on the banks of the stream, the men put away their work tools and led their animals back to the cattle sheds. Eld stopped, like an hourglass empty of sand.

Slowly, with no fuss or
shouting, Eldain’s people gathered on the streets, waiting in silence to see their leader one last time. The children sensed the seriousness of the moment, and grouped in front of the town’s inn. They opted for the quietest games, such as collecting up small stones to build a castle, or they simply sat on the ground, waiting patiently. That day, all thoughts were turned to Eldain, and him alone.

The body wa
s presented on a simple long wooden table covered by a white cloth, opposite the palace gates. A few flowers, many swords. Dressed in his armour, the elderly nobleman seemed to be slumbering peacefully. Behind him, all the fief’s soldiers were standing to attention, their eyes turned to the street. One by one, from peasant to servant, Eld’s citizens stopped at his side for an instant, to stroke his face or simply gaze at him in silence. Some brought a bottle of wine to leave at his feet, or perhaps an old knife worn by age, a horseshoe, an empty tumbler, a black feather, a silver ring... Items with a secret, personal meaning for their owners. A memento marking a moment, or merely the only object they still possessed.

Many hours went by before each of the town
’s inhabitants had had his or her own moment for recollection near Eldain. When the street and square had emptied, Adraman ordered his men to take everything – the body, the table and the gifts scattered on the ground – and he proceeded with them to Eld’s small monumental cemetery, behind the palace. It had not been used for some while, since the number of dead from the Long Winter had forced the survivors to burn everything, without distinction. Eldain’s family tomb stood in the centre: a compact windowless edifice of natural stone, low-rise and chunky. He was laid to rest there, next to his wife and son, inside a great dark marble uncarved sarcophagus. The tombs of Eldain’s ancestors surrounded the last heir to the dynasty. Eld’s royal lineage no longer existed.

N
ight fell, and with it came the wailing and despair. Soldiers wandered aimlessly, blind drunk, together with the farm-hands and shepherds. The women gathered outside the doors to their homes, in the street, whispering in tears and making the gloomiest predictions. Adraman let all excess pass, and punished no one when, at dawn, many failed to show at morning call to receive orders. For three long days, Eld remained paralysed and stunned, numbed by pain.

But
the town had not died with its king.

The furnace
s were relit, the farm-labourers returned to the fields and set to working again with angry enthusiasm, the streets were cleared of the broken bottles and the now withered blooms thrown from windows. The smithies’ workshops resounded with hammer blows on white-hot iron, and showers of sparks flew out their doorways, washing the roads in tiny red glimmers. Nobody had ordered swords, spears or arrows to be made, but the craftsmen made them just the same. It was as if all had sensed what the inevitable consequence of Eldain’s death would be. A return to the raging and raw war of past years.

The first
captains were quick in coming. Adraman decided to wait just twenty days, to give the areas at the most far-flung borders time to send their delegates. He had so much to do, from morning till night, that he often stayed on to sleep at the palace, in the apartments once belonging to Eldain. He touched nothing, like an unexpected guest always ready to depart. As hard as he endeavoured to hide behind a cast-iron mask, those who knew him well were aware of how much he was actually suffering. The throne seemed to prick him each time he sat on it for an audience and, from his pale appearance, he hadn’t had a wink of sleep for some time. Mordraud and Berg helped him as best they could, organising the work shifts, the rounds, the patrols to check for new outbreaks of the plaque, which finally seemed to be waning. The only positive note in those angst and busy weeks.

***

“We’ve got to keep things going, Deanna... They all need me...”

“
I need you too! And your son?! Can’t you think of him at least if you haven’t got time for me! When will you do us the honour of coming home for a bit?!”

Adraman
’s hands went to his face, fighting to smother a yell of rage. Eld was in turmoil, teeming with soldiers who had journeyed from all four corners of the Allied territories to take part in the council he’d called. He still had to shape a speech, and more than anything he needed a moment’s peace to soothe his nerves. If a mere single commander objected to his succession to the rebel leadership, pure pandemonium could break lose. And instead, he had to stand there and discuss with Deanna things that were the height of futility in that precise moment.

‘
She comes here every damn morning, with Mordraud in her arms, and expects to hound me while I work...’ he thought, biting his lip. ‘How can’t she understand the situation we’re in?!’

“
Deanna, please... We’ll talk about it tonight, or tomorrow morning... I can’t at the moment...”

“
Nothing at all’s changed, has it?! Still and always devoted to Eldain alone, isn’t that right?! Even after his death,
he’s
still the most important person for you!” she bawled in a caustic tone. Mordraud hadn’t stopped crying for an instant. Deanna did very little to try and calm him. In fact, she seemed incapable of cradling him properly in her arms. He’d never seen her so fraught, so aggressive. Adraman found himself praying she’d go and leave him alone.

“
Tonight... after the council, we’ll sort it all out... I promise.”

“
There’s nothing to sort out, Adraman! You’ll never change! You’re married to the war, not me!”

Deanna
went out slamming the door, and Adraman could at last let out a sigh of relief. The air in Eldain’s chamber had grown as heavy as lead, so he got up and opened the window, enjoying the morning’s tepid breeze and white light.

‘
She’s not entirely wrong...’ he mused, as his gaze wandered over the roofs of the houses circling the castle. ‘Just when my life was getting in order, the risk is that I’ll ruin everything... But what am I supposed to do?! Eldain chose me – I can’t pretend he didn’t... And if things go as I expect them to... I don’t even want to think about it...’

Adraman
could hear the young Mordraud crying in the street and saw Deanna running out of the castle, head low. Her shoulders were hunched and she was clutching the baby to her chest with such desperation that a lump came to Adraman’s throat.

‘
If everything goes as I expect... will you manage to cope?’

He was at the helm of an
alliance stretching as far as the coasts on the Ocean of the East, the command of thousands of men was in his hands, and yet he felt powerless and unarmed. He could do nothing to placate his wife. Mordraud’s birth seemed to have impaired her mind.

‘
I have to tell Adrina to keep an eye on her...’ he decided as he gathered the maps he wished to show during the meeting into a single roll. Adraman shook his head vehemently, took two deep breaths and ousted thoughts of home and Deanna from his head for a while. He had to focus on his speech. Much was hanging on that day, and he could not afford to get anything wrong.

The audience chamber
was already full when Adraman entered and took his place on the wooden throne. The attendants had lit only a few torches, as a sign of mourning. The mood could not have been grimmer, he considered, as he looked around. Mordraud and Berg were standing, in the front row, and he greeted them with a nod of the head. When the doors closed, Adraman rose from his seat and requested quiet from all.

“
Little time has passed since we last saw each other here, in this hall,” he launched, in a calm but firm voice. “Those were better times. Now the situation has changed, and in the most tragic of ways. Repeating events to you is pointless: every man in the Allied East has heard of Eldain’s demise. We may only hope this news has not yet reached Cambria.”

“
Firstly,” he went on, moving backwards and forwards before the throne, to thaw the tension numbing his legs, “I wish to make one thing clear: Eldain in person chose his successor... Please believe me when I say it is not a position I desired with a fervent passion. If anyone wishes to advance an objection, let him speak now, or forever hold his peace. I want the support of all, and I mean ALL, you men. Otherwise, without your trust, I am unable to command.”