The Rose of the World (72 page)

It was with dread that the Lord of Cantara rose from his sleepless bed that morning and peered through the window. Outside, dawn tinged the ground-fog a cold and ominous red; but even though the chilly mist coated everything with clammy fingers, no sight could have been more delightful to his eyes.

The surviving siege tower lay abandoned, its war platform poking through the surf of fog like the wreck of a great ship. He scanned the horizon, but saw no masts. The cook-fires were burned out and blackened, the cauldrons and tripods taken away, the tents dismantled. Even the stockade of cows looted from nearby farms lay unguarded. The cows lowed pitifully to be milked.

Where were the Eyrans?

There was not a single sign of them. They had given up: gone, sailed away. There could be no other explanation.

A huge and oppressive weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, to be replaced by swelling pride. Clearly his gamble with the boiling oil – every drop of cooking oil and lamp oil they had in the city used in a single grand gesture of defiance – had paid off and the enemy had lost heart. He laughed, suddenly joyful and filled with hope. He would surely be hailed as a hero for seeing off the barbarian horde.

This happy thought occupied him thereafter for the rest of the morning: then paranoia descended again. No man would willingly abandon the Rosa Eldi. He had with his own hands killed two guards who had tried to lay hands on her before the siege had begun: he knew her power. And so even as he sent men out to cull the cattle the northerners had left behind and called for a victory feast to be prepared three days hence, he set lookouts on the battlements and kept the soldiers at their positions for three nights to be quite sure that the Eyrans could play no trick upon him and take him by surprise.

On the fourth night, the city of Cera feasted.

And it was on the fourth night that Ravn Asharson made his move.

Festivities were at their height: the oxen had been roasted, every chicken in the city had been chased and cornered and roasted and stuffed with the last of the preserved figs. The men (no women were present: except three slavegirls who had had to be forcibly encased in their discarded sabatkas before being allowed in the presence of the Lord of Cantara) had drunk the cellars dry and now everyone was in fine voice, extolling the Duke of Cera’s bard, who had just performed a fine self-penned ballad entitled ‘The Heroic Stand of a Righteous Man’ to honour Lord Tycho Issian’s victory over the Eyran king. The less drunken amongst the gathering thought they detected some clever double meanings in the lyrics and were guffawing bawdily at the back of the hall, others were reminded of another song with a most similar tune and refrain, and were debating amongst themselves exactly what it was the bard had plagiarised, when the great doors opened and two figures stood framed beneath the ornate marble archway with its exquisite figurings of mosaic tile.

A hush fell across the hall. Even the most drunken fell silent and gazed in wonder.

Superficially at least, the two late entrants bore a striking resemblance to one another: both were tall and slim and possessed of an almost luminous whiteness of skin. But where one had its long pale hair caught back in a tail, the other wore hers loose so that it cascaded like a waterfall in sunlight across her shoulders and breast. They looked like figures out of legend, out of a different age of Elda; and with good reason.

Together, they stepped over the threshold of the hall and walked with stately grace to the table where sat Lord Tycho Issian, his wine cup halfway to his lips, his eyes wide with surprise.

The Rose of the World came to a halt before the man who had stolen her from the northern king and inclined her head.

‘My lord,’ she said in her soft, low voice, a voice which yet penetrated every corner of the room. ‘My son and I would speak with you.’

Tycho Issian screwed up his eyes in consternation, and in an attempt to focus on the perfect face before him. Damn the wine, and damn the woman for choosing this moment to break her long self-imposed isolation. Usually so abstemious in his drinking habits, he had allowed himself the luxury of celebration this night of all nights: the release of tension and the devotion of two attentive slave boys had assured his inebriation.

‘Your what?’

He had not meant it to come out so belligerently. He watched her eyes fix upon him, glinting, and regretted his haste. Discomfited, he transferred his gaze to the sorcerer, and for the first time saw the likeness. He blinked, looked back at the Rosa Eldi. Truly, now that he saw it, it was uncanny. But the woman before him could be no more than – what? – twenty-three? twenty-four? Her face was unmarked by age; her body unmarked by childbirth. He frowned. It could not be possible.

A riot of thoughts assailed him, topmost of which was that his daughter – out of jealousy or spite – might have lied when she claimed the Rose of the World to be barren. And if she had, then he would have his own son from her after all. He would take her and—

‘You are not listening to me.’

His head snapped up. The pale woman had said something.

‘I regret I did not catch what you said,’ he apologised carefully, each word an effort.

‘I said,’ she enunciated again, ‘that your enemy are upon us.’

There was a moment’s shocked silence throughout the hall; then came a storm of voices.

Tycho Issian lumbered to his feet, the warmth of the wine draining abruptly away. ‘Here? Now, at this hour?’ he slurred.

The Rosa Eldi beckoned him. ‘Come with me.’

He put his hand out to take hers, but she withdrew it quickly. Up the main staircase she led him, till it spiralled around to the front of the castle. There, through the arrowslits she bade him look.

Outside, moonlight gleamed silver on the lake and the sward, lending a glamour to the wreckage of battle. Nothing stirred; or so it seemed. Then the Rose of the World spoke two words and a lucent glow illuminated the great tree. In the darkness, using their axes to make one step after another, a hundred men were scaling the ash’s knotty trunk.

‘Give up your castle to them,’ she said, ‘and let us go. It is the only way to avoid further bloodshed.’

Tycho Issian staggered backwards. ‘Give it up? Let you go?’ he echoed. He felt the compulsion she laid on the words nagging at his skull, and knew then that had he been sober he would have been lost to whatever trickery this was. ‘Never!’ he roared, wine and fury rising in a bloody haze to obliterate whatever cursed magic she was using on him. Before she could step away, he grabbed her by the arms, pulled her towards him and engulfed her lips with his own.

The Rose of the World gasped for breath, taken unawares by this vile assault. Death was upon her, rancid and rampant. She spat out his tongue, wrenched her head away from him, but he was too strong for her, and too drunk to care that he offended her sensibilities; too ignorant to know he held a goddess in his arms.

‘You are mine,’ he told her thickly. ‘I shall never let you go.’

He turned to find the sorcerer appear at the turn in the stairs, his pale face harrowed.

‘We must go now,’ Virelai cried, quailing at the sight of his mother fainting in this monster’s grasp. ‘At once, before he comes . . .’

‘He?’ An image of Ravn Asharson formed in the Lord of Cantara’s mind: a young man, strong and virile and darkly handsome. What had she said of their union –
it was no invasion
? Women were sluts for a handsome face: they’d open their legs in an instant given half a chance. Which was why they must be robed and sequestered and kept well guarded, girded about by scripture and ritual. Well, he would not let this one out of his sight again.

‘The Master,’ Virelai said hoarsely. ‘We must be away before the Master finds us.’

The Lord of Cantara froze. Then, with the Goddess held hard against him with one arm, he struck out with his free hand and caught Virelai an eye-watering blow across the face.

‘I am the only master here!’ he hissed. Then: ‘Fetch three robes from the slaves’ tiring room—’ He indicated a doorway down the corridor.

The Rose of the World twisted out of the Istrian’s grasp. She put out a hand to her son’s face where the skin showed the livid mark of his assailant’s fist. Coolness flowed from her fingertips: when she withdrew it, the cheek was smooth and white once more and there was no pain. ‘Do as he says,’ she said softly.

Moments later, three figures slipped out of the castle’s postern gate, cloaked in black sabatkas, chill darkness and the sorcerer’s best attempt at a veiling spell.

Forty-one

Escape

‘You said they’d be here!’

Ravn Asharson turned on the mage with fury in his eyes.

Rahe glared around the deserted chamber, sniffing the air like a dog. ‘They were, I tell you; I saw them. I even stole up the tree again at sundown to make certain. The door was bound by spellcraft: they had imprisoned themselves against him: I can still smell the magic they used. They cannot have been gone for long.’

Ravn sneered. ‘You lie, old man. You forget that I have just watched you scale this tree with utmost difficulty, and you’re still wheezing like an old hound from the effort of it. My mother always said that a man who never takes another at his word is rarely surprised: now I am beginning to wish I paid better attention to her bitter counsel. But I shall not be surprised again.’ He eased Trollbiter from its scabbard at his hip.

At this, Rahe put out his hand, and it seemed to all present that the sword in the King’s hand became a supple, living thing. It writhed in his grip so that he let go of it in horror. None but Aran Aranson, who knew better by now than to fall for the old man’s illusions, heard the clang as metal reverberated off flagstones.

‘It pains me to waste my magic,’ Rahe snarled. He had exhausted himself by the transition from man to mouse and back again; so much so that he knew he could not risk it again for another ascent: now exhaustion made him furious. He made a fist, and the snake became a sword again. Without even a glance at Ravn Asharson, he marched to the door and ran his hands over it, muttering. A few seconds later he stood back, wiping his palms on his robe as if to rid them of another’s dirty spellcraft. The door creaked open.

Outside, all was chaos. Word had spread quickly through the Istrian castle, and although none had yet seen hide nor hair of the enemy, panic was rife.

Men ran hither and thither, some armed, most not; many in their best robes, bleary-eyed and stumbling with drink. Women who had not even stopped to don their veils shepherded children bearing great bundles of household goods before them, though where they thought to find safe quarter in a besieged castle, who could say? Servants and slaves scurried amongst them, trying doors, fleeing down stairways. Some sank down onto the ground and prayed to the Goddess, tripping up others who weren’t looking where they were going. Of the soldiery there seemed little sign.

Aran Aranson followed his king down corridor after corridor, and wherever they ran, the inhabitants of Cera fled before them, terrified. At last, however, they came upon one unfortunate member of the city guard who had foolishly got turned around on himself in the maze of passageways and been separated from the rest of his troop. Ravn grabbed him and held him up against the wall by his throat.

‘Where is she, my queen, the Rose of the World?’ he rasped in Eyran, and the man’s eyes went wide with fear. He gibbered something unintelligible, until Ravn repeated his question in the Old Tongue.

‘She – she came into the gr-great h-hall,’ the man stammered. His legs were trembling so hard that if Ravn had let go, he would surely have crumpled. In moments he would wet himself. Aran had seen terror like this before. He looked away, embarrassed for the man.

‘When?’ Ravn let go the man’s throat so he could at least speak.

‘O-only minutes ag-go. It was the end of the f-feast. I was on the door, but B-Brina took p-pity on me and brought me some ale. Ev-everyone else was drunk,’ he added defensively.

‘Brina?’ Aran Aranson pushed forward.‘Did you say Brina?’

Ravn turned on the Rockfaller furiously. ‘Do not interrupt your king! What care I about this Brina, when I’m looking for my wife?’

‘She might be Egg’s wife, sire, stolen away in the last war. It’s an unusual name—’

Ravn barely paused. He shoved Aran away, then turned back to the guard, who had watched this interplay with apprehension. ‘And then?’

‘Ah . . . and then . . . ah . . . she and the p-pale man, the s-sorcerer, came in and she said to the Lord of C-Cantara, the enemy are upon us, or s-suchlike, and though she said it only to him, we all h-heard, and after that it was m-mayhem.’

‘And where is she now?’ Ravn’s clipped tone suggested he was barely keeping violence in check.

‘I . . . I d-don’t know. She and the L-Lord Issian left the hall t-together.’

‘Damnation!’ Ravn let the man go so suddenly that he lost his footing. Then he ran on down the corridor, shouting for his men to fan out, search all rooms, secure all exits.

Aran dawdled till the rest had gone. Too absorbed in getting to his feet and straightening his uniform, the guard was shocked to find the Rockfaller looming over him. He went paler still.

‘Peace,’ said Aran. ‘This Brina, tell me, is she an Eyran woman?’

The guard – barely more than a boy, Aran realised belatedly – looked startled. ‘I . . . I couldn’t s-say. She has an odd accent.’

‘And her age? Could she be fifty or so?’

The lad grimaced. He looked aside, concentrating. ‘That would be hard to say. Her hands are . . . veined and a little spotted. And her lips are thin, the skin around them pale and a bit puckered.’

‘You are very observant,’ Aran said approvingly.

The young man blushed. ‘I like to draw, sir. I’m not really a soldier. Well, no one is here, not really. We never drill or anything . . .’ His hand shot to his mouth. ‘I also talk too much.’

Aran’s lips twitched as he fought down a smile. ‘Well, talk some more, then,’ he urged. ‘And then go and cast off your uniform and make yourself scarce. Where might I find this Brina?’