Authors: Tim Akers
“I will. Immediately, in fact. In the council yard, you say?”
“Where he has demanded absolute privacy.”
Ian grimaced but looked away from the older master. Phillipe was not the sort of man to be persuaded, especially in matters where he had received direct orders from the lord of the estate. Ian would have to wait.
“Priests never bring good news,” Ian muttered.
“They bring the light of Strife and the judgment of Cinder,” Phillipe said stiffly. “No need for heresy.”
“But what could he want? Why would the high elector come all this way, only to depart the next day?”
“It is not my privilege to know such things, Master Ian, as it is not my responsibility. I am charged with the running of the house, which today includes the proper presentation of this feast. To that end,” Phillipe said, bowing and backing away, “I must be about my business.”
Ian leaned against one of the tables, chewing his lip nervously as the servants buzzed around him. He was still standing there, thinking about the sort of trouble the high elector could visit on his house, when his mother cleared her throat. He turned around to discover that the servants were gone, the feast was prepared, and the delegation of lesser priests had arrived. Sorcha Blakley stood just inside the door to the great hall, Nessie, and a half-dozen men and women of the church standing awkwardly behind. His mother fixed her son in her gaze, a look of disappointment on her fine face.
“Dear Mother,” he said stiffly, straightening up and fixing his collar. “I have been overseeing preparations for the feast. I am pleased to announce that Phillipe has done his job with exceptional skill, as is his custom.”
The duchess of Houndhallow rolled her eyes and marched past her son, taking him by his braids and dragging him to the dais. Nessie was tittering hysterically. When they reached the dais, and without the presence of the lord of the castle, the duchess called for the rest of the attendees to be let in, and for the feast to begin.
D
ARKNESS FELL AND
the minstrels played on, but it seemed as if the feast would never end, and still the duke of Houndhallow didn’t appear. The lesser priests of Strife, all holy men and women, were working their way up to the feast of the Allfire, a week-long debauch that marked the height of summer and the reign of Lady Strife. Ian stayed as long as he felt was proper, and then a good deal longer when his mother caught him trying to sneak off.
Sometime after Nessie had fallen asleep in her chair and the priests of Strife had sung the evening down, off-key and without half the words, he managed his escape. He went straight to the council yard.
There he found several empty bottles and a guttering lantern, but no council. His father was gone, along with the high elector. The guard at the door said that all but Malcolm and High Elector Beaunair had left hours earlier, and the duke and his guest had stayed and talked and drunk until just half an hour earlier.
“I’m surprised Father didn’t come to the feast, then,” Ian said. “Mother will be unhappy.”
“His lordship seemed in no mood for feasting. The high elector saw to that.”
“Trouble?”
The guard shrugged. Ian began the search for his father.
Figuring the lord of Houndhallow would head to his chambers, Ian rushed up the stairs to where his parents slept. The door was shut, and the guard on duty insisted that the lord had not retired for the evening.
Confused, Ian began to wander the castle. He couldn’t very well return to the feast after having successfully slipped away, and his father probably wasn’t there anyway. It worried Ian that his father had spent so much time alone with the high elector, and had come away burdened. What could the church want to discuss with the lord of Houndhallow that couldn’t bear the company of Sir Dugan and Master Tavvish? And why hadn’t either of them come to the feast?
This was all very peculiar.
Wandering both in mind and in body, Ian found himself on a curtain wall, overlooking the great hall and the yard before it. The wagons that had brought the high elector to Houndhallow were tucked beside the stables, taking up more than their fair share of the training grounds, and some of the kennel runs. The yard itself was trampled, and by the looks of the stables, there were more horses in the castle than Houndhallow had seen in years. He leaned against the wall, resting in the noise and business of the castle yard, watching the servants scamper around while the family and their guests ate their meal. He found comfort in knowing that the castle continued working, even when the Blakleys were occupied elsewhere.
Then he noticed the shadow looming on the castle wall not far away, leaning against the crenels, a bottle in his hand. His father, duke of Houndhallow and lord of the Darkling March, looked like the town drunk as he rested his elbows against the stone wall and swilled wine. He was facing away from the castle.
“The council is over? I thought you would be in your rooms,” Ian said as he approached his father.
“I knew you’d come looking for me, eventually. You or your mother… and I needed some space,” he said, quietly. His breath stank of wine. Ian wondered how much his father had consumed while the council was still going on.
“Should I leave you here in peace, then?” Ian asked.
“Too late for that.” Malcolm looked his son over blearily. “You’ve cut your hand?”
Ian ducked the bandage behind his back. “It’s nothing.”
Ian leaned on the wall next to his father and looked out. Hallowton rested below them, across the river that served the castle as a moat. Beyond, the forest stretched for a great distance, farther than either of them could see even in the daytime. Malcolm offered his son the bottle. A harsh wine, black on the tongue and bitter, it was a welcome change from dinner.
“What business did the high elector have?” Ian asked. “Is he really only staying for the night?”
“Aye.”
“Does he travel north?” Ian asked.
“He travels to Greenhall. He means to celebrate the Allfire with Gabriel Halverdt.” Malcolm took the bottle back from his son and drank from it, grimacing as the wine hit his throat. “He means us to go with him.”
“Go with him? But the Allfire is less than a week away. We’ll be hard pressed to make it in time.”
“Which is why we leave in the morning. Early,” Malcolm said. “You should find your way to bed.”
“But why?”
“Because bed is where we sleep, Ian. Unless you mean to pass out here on the wall.” Another drink, then a smirk. “Which is sounding pretty good right now.”
“You know what I mean. Why are we going to Greenhall? Preparations have already begun for our own celebration. Mother will be furious to miss the feast Phillipe has prepared, and Nessie…”
“They aren’t coming with us. It is you, and me, and a small contingent of knights. We mustn’t threaten Greenhall with our numbers.”
“He would be threatened by our ladyfolk?” Ian asked with a grin.
Malcolm looked sideways at his son. “We mustn’t give him a way to threaten us, either. Mother will be safer here. Any woman who travels with us will need to carry a sword, and not a gentle one, at that. We’ll bring Sir Doone. She can enter the lists.”
“If it’s so dangerous then why are we going?”
“We go because the church asks us to go. That’s all you need to know.”
“Surely there’s more…”
“That’s all you need to know,” Malcolm repeated, almost angrily. “Now give your father some peace. Night has fallen. I have my prayers to say.”
Ian shook his head and grimaced.
“How do you expect me to learn anything if you won’t let me inside these sorts of meetings? If I’m to be the next lord of Houndhallow…”
“If you’re to be the next lord, then I’m to die first, and you’ll forgive me if I’m not anxious to play that out,” Malcolm said sharply. “Besides, you’re still a boy. What counsel do you expect to give?”
“I’m a man of sixteen, grown enough to take the vow if I chose, and yet…”
“A boy of sixteen, and grown enough to know he knows nothing.” Malcolm finished the bottle and tossed it out into the river. It disappeared from sight long before it reached the raging waters below. “Honestly, son, you have enough to worry about without adding these things to your table.”
“What? What have I to worry about? I spend my days practicing the sword, riding the lists, and dancing. It’s ridiculous, and while it might be enough for a child of the south, groomed to walk the courts of Heartsbridge, I’m not interested in that life. I want to be a lord of the north, Father, like a man of the old tribes. A leader! And I can’t begin to be that if you don’t let me learn to be a lord.”
“You can learn the way I learned, boy. The same way you learned to fall off a log—by falling off a log.” Malcolm rubbed his face. “It’s just, you understand, that I was as anxious as you, when I was your age. Anxious to be about my business.”
“Then why do you keep pushing me back?”
“Because my father never did,” Malcolm said sternly. “Because he took me to every council meeting, sought my advice on matters of state, taught me how to dance with a lady and greet the ministers and address the Celestial throne. And then, when he died and I was the one truly in command, it was all…” He stared down at his hands. “It wasn’t enough. It was worthless. They never teach you what you need to know.”
“Then teach me that,” Ian said, after a moment of silence. He didn’t like seeing his father like this. “Whatever it is, whatever grandfather didn’t teach you. Teach me that. That’s what I want to learn.”
Malcolm laughed, a low, rolling chuckle that seemed to be rooted in the stone of the castle. He clapped his son on the shoulder and smiled.
“That cannot be taught,” Malcolm said. “You can’t be prepared for what this throne requires of a man—not until you’re on the seat. Not until it’s your word that ends a life, or saves it. Not until it’s your decision that can lead to war—” His voice caught, and Malcolm looked out over the forest, his eyes glassy under Cinder’s harsh light. “Nothing can prepare you for this life.”
The two stood there awkwardly. Below them the castle’s inhabitants continued on their frantic pace, ignoring the duke and his heir.
“So what am I to do?” Ian asked.
Malcolm didn’t answer.
“Live,” he said after a time. “Live and be a child. The weight of a man will be on you soon enough. Perhaps sooner than you hope. Perhaps sooner than we
all
hope.”
“I mean tonight,” Ian said.
“Ah. Go to bed. Sleep. Morning is not far off.”
Malcolm gave his son an affectionate cuff across the face, then pushed past him and shuffled down the battlement to the main tower. Ian watched him go, wondering what in the names of both gods might be on his father’s mind, what news the high elector brought, and why Beaunair was insisting they travel south for the Allfire. Especially to that bastard Halverdt’s court.
He looked out over the forest, staring south to distant Greenhall, and wondered what was waiting for them in the night.
* * *
Morning came, and with it the cost of that bottle of wine, harsh in Malcolm’s skull. He woke before it was light and slipped from his bedchamber, shutting the door on his wife’s gentle breathing. Sorcha would never forgive him if he failed to say a proper goodbye, but he would rather not trouble her with his discomfort.
He dressed in darkness, then snuck down to the doma. There he prayed twice, once to each of the gods in the doma, and once more, before dawn came, hidden in the hallowed shrine from which the castle took its name.
The dome of the shrine was low and arched, the rough stone barely taller than a man at its highest point. The air was dank and still. A low wall ringed the icon at the center of the shrine, and a runnel in the solid stone of the floor led to the icon, a memory of the time when a natural stream ran through to wash the blood away. As with all holy things of the old days, this shrine had once been open to the sky. Generations past the Blakleys bricked it over as the first sign of their devotion to the new religion. Since then the castle called Houndhallow had been built above the dome, to be the seat of House Blakley’s modest realm.
In the center stood the shrine itself, an uncut block of dark stone, and perched on that was the head of an enormous hound, forged from blackest iron. The jaws of the hound gaped open, larger than a man’s chest, and the eyes were black pits. Oil lanterns sat in the hollows of the eyes and flickered, while thick, inky smoke smothered the air. The jaws were stained in ancient blood, stains that continued down the rock and onto the floor. The first Blakleys had been vicious men, brutal in their zeal for the dark spirit that the iron hound represented.
The head was surrounded by a dry moat that had in the past served as both a fountain and a fire pit. The stone wall of that moat served as a kneeler, worn smooth by generations of supplicants, all of them praying to different gods for different reasons.
And there, his head in his hands, knees bent before the symbol of his family, Malcolm Blakley, duke of Houndhallow, prayed.
“I expected you to still be in bed,” Sorcha Blakley said from the door. She was dressed in a simple robe, her long brown hair laced in gold and amber, bound in a thick braid that reached to her waist. The hound’s flickering eyes struck sharp shadows across her tired face.
Malcolm relaxed into his pose of supplication, the sound of his wife’s voice draining tension from his shoulders. Still, he didn’t stand.
“I have too much on my mind for sleep,” he said.
“A tired mind makes mistakes,” she murmured.
He sighed and then, creaking, turned and sat on the kneeler. He laced his fingers together. He looked like a hunter taking a breath in the woods, resting before he moved on. Nothing like one of the greatest heroes of the Reaver War, duke of Houndhallow, faithful son of the Celestial church.
“I have little enough choice in the matter,” he said. “I can’t make sleep come, no matter what I try.”
Sorcha sat beside her husband and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“You must try to rest, my love,” she said. “This trip will ask much of you. Your body is not what it once was, able to sleep in the saddle and fight in the morning.”