For the first time that night the crowd was stung into absolute silence, scarcely believing what it was seeing. Then, as a dam bursting at the press of too much water, the noise broke. The best
fight of the night was the last one and the sound of the crowd surely rose to the heavens to disturb even the Gods.
Haelward dropped his flail and lifted his hand to the crowd. He staggered over to Odo Kegertsa. ‘Ten minutes, upstairs.’ He slurred before sinking to his knees and mopping up his
blood with his shirt.
Ten minutes later that was exactly where they were. Odo sat flanked by two henchman, facing Haelward, a bloodied rag held to his face –someone who had been mobbed unendingly on his walk up
the stairs to the seat he occupied now. Willem sat next to him; the two men had yet to speak to each other properly.
‘Well,’ said Haelward to Odo, ‘I have done as you asked. Now it is your turn – or shall it be said that the Kegertsas do not keep their part of the bargain?’
Odo smiled his mirthless smile. ‘Of course we do, but let us talk of tonight first. You defeated a man we all thought undefeatable. Lennark Skor will be crying into his purse for months.
Why not work for me? We could make a fortune, both of us. A soldier’s pay is a pittance anyway. Why not forget the war and stay here.’
Haelward dabbed his bloodied cheek. ‘I would rather face a hundred Arshuman spear than go through tonight again. Just bring the girl to us and we shall be gone from here for
ever.’
‘The girl?’ said Odo, feigning surprise. ‘But I need fifty crowns before I release the girl.’
Haelward felt the pit of his stomach sink. ‘Is that not what I earned for you tonight?’
Odo snapped his fingers, causing one of his henchmen to lean over the table.
‘How much did I earn from the Degg fight tonight?’
‘Well sir, you were on course to make fifty five crowns on it tonight, but there was a late run of money on this fellow. You ended up with forty-three crowns.’
Haelward groaned; he knew exactly who had put the late money on him to lower his odds. Odo wanted to keep him here where he could keep earning for him. He had failed Willem and felt in too much
pain to resist this manipulative criminal. His fogged brain searched for the words he needed but failed, leaving Willem to speak next.
‘You are saying you need seven more crowns before you release Alys?’
‘Yes I am. A few more fights from Haelward here and it will be repaid. Bear in mind, his odds have shrunk considerably from now on.’
‘And you are a man of honour, are you not? Do you swear that if you get seven more crowns you will release Alys to us?’
‘Of course,’ said Odo. ‘But you do not have seven crowns.’
‘No I don’t,’ said Willem. He stood and pulled out a pouch fastened to his belt. He loosened the drawstring and emptied its shining gold contents on to the table. ‘I have
eight,’ he said, sitting back down again.
Odo was silent as a statue. Haelward looked over to Willem and saw something in him that he had never seen before, a firm line to his jaw, a steely determination – the callow boy had
definitely become a man.
‘Well,’ said Haelward, ‘will you honour your bargain or shall I tell Master Skor that your word means nothing? What will your rivals make of that?’
Odo stood, leaving his henchman to pick up the coins. ‘One hour, in the harbour by the jetty. My man will bring her; you will not see me again.’
And with that Odo Kegertsa was gone into the cold night, his men following again, leaving the door swinging open behind them.
Willem’s face was a picture of happiness. He fastened his purse back on to his belt and turned to see Haelward looking at him in bewilderment.
‘How?’
‘It is not only Odo who can bet on the outcome of fights. I had a little bet of my own. For an ex-marine your odds were terrible. You said before you did not trust Odo and I agreed with
you. I knew he would try something.’ Haelward nodded slowly. ‘I am impressed. How much did you bet?’
‘Everything.’
‘What! Everything we had?’
‘Indeed. If you had lost, we would be struggling to eat tomorrow.’ He looked at Haelward’s appalled face. ‘Worry not! I knew you would win; you have battled both ettins
and spirits and have come away unscathed. I had to do what I could to get Alys back. I was not leaving this place without her.’
‘Speaking of leaving, Marten has booked us passage on a ship heading into Tanaren City on the morrow. We could be in the city in days. Let us get to the harbour. I still do not trust Odo
even now; it would still be easy for us to end up with a knife in our backs.’
Less than an hour later, on the harbour front with the salt tang hanging heavily in their nostrils, Willem was finally reunited with Alys. Only one man came to bring her, the very one who had
shown Willem to her room in the brothel itself. Oblivious of the onlookers, and of the drunken crowds still thronging Sea Street – though the hour was close to dawn – the two
embraced.
‘I knew you would come,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I never doubted it, not for one second.’
Willem did not reply. She was not the girl he had first met. Her face was painted, though not so much as the other girls, and she wore her hair loose rather than tied behind her. Her eyes, too,
were different; there had always been a sweet purity to her expression that he had always believed was a reflection of the good she always believed was held in others. That had diminished. She
looked sadder now, hurt, even, by the realisation that perhaps others saw the world not as she did, but as a harsher, crueller place. She smelled the same, though, and her soft words showed that,
though she may have been a little different, a little wiser perhaps, she was still the girl he loved at heart.
Odo’s henchman interrupted them. ‘I would leave now, if I were you. The boss is known to change his mind quickly. Be thankful that he likes sharp, intelligent people, or you would
not have made it to the harbour alive.’
They heeded his words. Moored at the jetty was a small rowing boat piloted by a couple of men from the
Southern Breeze
, the ship Marten had paid for them to sail on, for he, too, had put
a fair deal of coin on Haelward that night. They clambered in and were away in no time.
Willem looked back at the receding lights of the city, he counted the second brothel along Sea Street and wondered if Rose was there, sleeping or working. His happiness was tarnished a little by
learning of her plight. ‘When I can, I will come for you,’ he said to himself. ‘We both will.’
Alys cut into his thoughts. ‘Glad to leave it behind? I am sorry, Willem, that I have been sullied for you. Know that I love you all the more for your understanding. Let us go home now, to
the university, to the lodgings, where we belong.’
‘What happened there I have forgotten already,’ Willem replied. ‘It is forward that we shall look, not back.’ She looked at him and smiled; he thought her quite radiant.
‘See how the breeze runs through your hair!’
‘Can you both be quiet, please,’ Haelward said, still holding his hand to his face. ‘I am in quite enough pain already.’
‘Poor Haelward!’ Alys laughed. ‘You will have to tell me how you came by your injuries.’
‘I walked into a door,’ the man grumbled. ‘And while I rolled on the floor crying like a baby Willem upped and rescued you. And that is the truth. Almost.’
They made it to the ship and at dawn were underway, heading eastwards to the great city. Their journey was swift and they got there within two days. Willem and Alys were happy to return to their
tiny rooms at St Philig’s. but soon they both realised that the apprentice monk and the artist were gone for ever and they could never return to being the people they had once been. Not that
it changed their feelings for each other, for you cannot change that which is set in stone. If anything, they had become closer, stronger. For some things endure beyond a lifetime and that is
something both Willem and Alys had known for a long, long while. They would never be separated again.
Dawn at Erskon House was greeted by the trilling of a million tiny songbirds and the cries of the cockerels in the courtyard. At Osperitsan it was often the harsh call of the
crows living on the roof that stirred her. But at Edgecliff it was the shrieking of the great gulls riding the first thermals of the day over the soaring cliffs on which the castle perched. It was
the gulls she could hear now, calling and leadenly beating their wings in a sky slowly turning from deepest mauve to lilac as the winter sun peeked apologetically over the horizon.
But she was not at Edgecliff now.
She stirred as her fogged memory cleared. Her arm was around someone warm, someone strong, someone snoring. For Jon Skellar snored badly; she would wager even worse than she did herself. He had
been an absolute gentleman that night, holding her when she asked, then releasing her when she grew uncomfortable. He had never been inappropriate with her and had spoken in soft, comforting tones
when he saw the tears mist up her eyes. She would miss him.
She eased herself out of the bed, her bare feet flapping on the cold stone floor. He did not stir. She found her dress now washed and pressed, the velvet rustling as she slid it over her. It was
a modest dress for a duke’s daughter, blue velvet and lace, but one that could still dazzle minor nobility, let alone the peasantry. She did not bother with her jewellery.
She checked the letters on her dresser. The top one, addressed to Jon, she looked at three times, tempted to break the seal on it and read it one last time, but finally she set it down again and
sighed. She had to keep herself fidgeting to distract herself, to keep herself from dwelling on the import of what she was about to do.
For, if she was to stop and think of it, her terror would be all the greater.
It was the truth – she was beyond frightened. Her churning stomach told her that. She had never known such an unsettling fear, not under the earth at Oxhagen, not when she was ambushed on
the hills and not even when the estate at Osperitsan was turned into a place of blood and misery.
Her husband and father were dead and the perpetrators were still out there. A great wrong needed to be righted and she believed it was in her power to do so. But she did not know what the price
would be.
She leant over and gave Jon Skellar a soft familial kiss on his exposed neck. ‘Goodbye, Jon,’ she whispered.
That done, she swathed herself in a black hooded cloak that Jon had given her and left the room. She then walked the length of the manor house where only a few bleary-eyed servants were
stirring. She said hello to every one of them, trying to keep up a cheery façade, until she finally exited the house through the great doors.
Immediately she headed to the stables where the chief ostler was already up, grooming and feeding his precious charges.
‘I need a horse,’ she said to him. ‘It does not have to be fast, just of good temperament and not easily frightened.’
‘Of course, my Lady. I think I have just the one for you. When do you want her ready?’
‘In about twenty minutes, at the front gate. Do it in fifteen and there will be a ducat in it for you.’
She left him and looked about the rest of the courtyard. It was all but deserted. She then walked back towards the manor house, but rather than head for the great doors she skirted the building
itself, walking on the narrow, sandy strip of land between the house and its boundary wall. The whole house, perched precariously on its narrow promontory high above the sea, was often buffeted by
strong winds and Ceriana found that even the protective wall did not stop sand getting blown into her mouth and eyes. Nevertheless, she continued her walk until at last she stood just outside the
very room where she had spent the night with Skellar. In happier times she would have climbed the wall and tapped on one of the great windows, for here there was barely a gap of two feet between
house and wall. But these were not happier times and she wanted Skellar to sleep just a little longer. She did not want him seeing her. Not now.
Then, at last, the house was behind her. Before her, the boundary wall had partly collapsed into piles of loose and scattered stone. The grass beyond the wall had grown over some of it and into
the bounds of the manor house itself, covering the sand underfoot. Over the wall the promontory tapered into a narrow spike of land standing over the cliffs and a drop of hundreds of feet into the
ocean below. Above her, the gulls soared, calling incessantly, hungrily.
Despite the dryness in her throat, she swallowed nervously and delicately began to clamber over the loose stones ahead of her. She stood atop the wall for a second and for the first time felt
the full force of the buffeting winds coming from both north and south. She raised her arms and threw back her hood, letting it billow through her hair and whip her cloak behind her where it
flapped like one of the flags at Edgecliff Castle. It felt exhilarating.
She picked her path over the wall on to the sweet grass of the headland. She was now outside the bounds of the house. Ten feet to her left was a sheer drop. Ten feet to her right was the same.
The light was getting stronger now and she walked to her left to see the harbour fully. The fleet was departing; one of the galleons was free of the harbour already, flanked by a couple of smaller
ships, the carracks. Behind them, all of the other ships were under sail; soon they would all be breasting the turbulent seas on their way to Osperitsan. At least they knew an ambush awaited them;
she wondered what the outcome would be. Even if they drove off the enemy fleet, they still had to land on the island, where Vorfgan would have his defences fully prepared. She hoped the Gods had
not deserted them, as they had her.
She moved forward towards the cliff edge. The wind whipped at her cloak and clothes, chilling her and making her steps unsteady. A couple of times she almost lost her footing and grimly imagined
herself being blown over the edge to be smashed to pieces on the rocks or swallowed up by the sea. She realised dully that she didn’t really care if that did happen to her. To all intents and
purposes, her life was over anyway.