Bloodheir

II

“Is it true?”

Aewult the Bloodheir was shouting at Anyara, his face so close to her own that she could smell the hot memory of his last meal. A blush of anger had coloured his rough, stubbled cheeks, a film of spittle coated the creases of his lips. His rage was clearly profound.

“Has your brother marched?” Aewult demanded. “Where are his warriors going? Kolglas?”

Anyara pulled her head back a fraction. However potent the Bloodheir’s anger might be, she had her own stores of irritation to draw on. She planted a firm hand on his chest, applying just enough pressure to make sure that he noticed it. To her astonishment, and alarm, Aewult struck her arm aside.

Coinach was there at once, drawing her aside, putting himself between her and the Bloodheir. The shieldman stood tall, one hand on Anyara’s arm, the other on the pommel of his sword. He and Aewult stared at one another, Aewult’s eyes burning with indignation and threat, Coinach’s cold and calm. At once horrified and excited, Anyara reached to pull her shieldman back, but another intervention came first.

“So long as you are under my roof, Bloodheir, you will not raise a hand against the sister of a Thane.” Ilessa oc Kilkry-Haig’s voice was imperious, all confidence and control.

It was enough to cut through Aewult’s befuddling rage. He looked towards Lheanor’s wife. Ilessa was seated at a broad table, papers scattered all over its surface. A gaggle of her Blood’s officials — storesmen, oathmen — shared the table with her, every one of them staring at Aewult nan Haig. Anyara had been seated at that same table, discussing with Ilessa how best the Lannis folk who had fled into Kilkry lands might be fed and housed, when Aewult burst in. From the first moment of his furious entry, it had been as if he did not even see Ilessa or any of the others; his eyes — his demands and accusations — had been only for Anyara.

“I might raise a hand against that Thane himself, were he here,” Aewult snarled, “but he isn’t, is he? That’s the point. And neither’s his little army.”

He did not sound at all repentant, but he did take a couple of paces back.

“I don’t much care what the point is, or what dreadful wrong you think Orisian oc Lannis-Haig has done you,” Ilessa said. “You are a guest here, and will conduct yourself accordingly. I would expect no less of even the Thane of Thanes, and your authority does not yet match your father’s.”

Aewult made a faint grunting noise and turned his attention back to Anyara. She was still half-shielded by Coinach, who appeared unwilling to rely solely on Ilessa’s words to restrain the Bloodheir.

“You can tell your guard dog to stand aside, my lady,” Aewult muttered. He did not deign to look at Coinach now. “If I caused you offence, I regret it, but I’ll not have a shieldman putting himself in my face, certainly not a woman’s shieldman.”

There was such biting contempt in Aewult’s tone that Anyara understood for the first time just how difficult Coinach’s new role might be for him. He was doing as his Thane commanded, yet there could be no glory — precious little credit, even — in being shieldman to a woman. He was more likely to harvest mockery than admiring glances.

She eased Coinach to one side, feeling his reluctance in the stiffness of his frame. She lifted her chin and met Aewult’s gaze directly.

“I’ll leave it to him to decide how best he should carry out his duties,” she said.

“Ha!” Aewult slapped his thigh in sudden, harsh merriment. “You’ve enough bite about you that I wouldn’t have thought you needed some boy-warrior to watch over you. Anyway, my question’s still unanswered. Where’s your brother? And what does Taim Narran intend to do with the men he’s led out? Surely the Lannis Blood hasn’t forgotten who commands this army, this campaign?”

“Oh, still your tongue, for everyone’s sake,” Ilessa snapped from the table. “Your tantrums will not win you any friends here.”

“It’s not friends I’m looking for,” Aewult replied.

There is danger in all of this, Anyara thought. Haig thinks so little of us, and of Kilkry, that even the most trifling argument can be a fertile seedbed for strife. And this might not be the most trifling argument.

“Ah, so this is where everyone is.”

Every head in the room turned to the doorway. Mordyn Jerain stood there, smiling as if in quiet satisfaction at solving some minor puzzle. His hands — smooth, elegant — were clasped in front of him. He wore a heavy coat of brushed velvet, a sheen of gold embroidery at the cuffs and hems and collar. A single long pace brought him into the room. That simple movement was enough for him to take possession of the space, make himself its focus.

“I thought I heard familiar voices,” he murmured, looking from one face to the next. “From quite some little distance away, in fact.”

“The Bloodheir was just expressing his disappointment at Orisian oc Lannis-Haig’s absence,” Ilessa said. Her voice, Anyara noted, was now utterly expressionless. There was no hint of the command she had used against Aewult.

Mordyn Jerain nodded thoughtfully, as if Ilessa’s explanation satisfied every possible query he might have, and turned his dazzling smile on Anyara. She had to fold her arms to stop herself fidgeting with her dress. How foolish, she thought, to be so easily unsettled by this man’s attention. She was not much given to discomfiture, yet all the Bloodheir’s fury had not troubled her as much as the Shadowhand’s clear, intelligent gaze.

“Disappointing, yes,” Mordyn said. “A small misunderstanding, I’m sure. Your brother is brave, to strike out on his own when such danger is abroad. The Bloodheir is naturally concerned, as am I. As is everyone, no doubt. The Lannis-Haig Blood cannot afford any more misfortunes.”

“Orisian can take care of himself,” Anyara said as confidently as she could.

“I dare say he can.”

“The question is not whether he can take of himself, but whether he remembers his duties and responsibilities,” muttered Aewult nan Haig.

“Duties?” Anyara asked the Bloodheir, preferring the idea of more harsh words from him to that of more blandishments from Mordyn Jerain.

“To my father, and the True Bloods. If there are battles to be fought, I command the army that will fight them. Not your brother. Not Taim Narran.”

The Chancellor held his hands up, still smiling equably. “Well, the battles are not here, and not yet. And it is up to a Thane how he conducts himself in time of war, of course. Orisian will learn how these things are done in time. Tell me, though, Anyara, it does seem strange that Taim Narran should have led your army off in one direction and your brother gone in another. If I understand rightly, Orisian left by the Kyre Gate, heading east. That’s a strange way to make for Kolglas.”

“Do leave the girl alone, Chancellor,” said Ilessa before Anyara had time to respond. “She’s tired and worried. We were discussing more important matters than her brother’s whereabouts before we were interrupted.”

“Of course. You must forgive us. Come, Bloodheir, let us leave these ladies to their deliberations.”

Aewult nan Haig’s anger was almost amusing, Mordyn Jerain reflected. It was built on foundations of disbelief: the Bloodheir was astonished that the child-Thane of the Lannis Blood would presume to leave Kolkyre without so much as a moment’s discussion. One thing both Aewult and his brother Stravan had picked up from their mother was a pronounced, but sometimes shallow-rooted, sense of their own importance. Any sign that others did not share their own high opinion of themselves tended to cause great offence, and to Aewult’s way of thinking what Orisian had done was no doubt tantamount to turning his back and walking away in the midst of a conversation.

Almost amusing, but not quite. Ilessa oc Kilkry-Haig had not been wrong to call it a disappointment. Everything had seemed to be coming together, but Orisian’s sudden and unwonted display of independence had at a stroke unpicked some of the pattern that Mordyn was trying to weave. And now he had to deal with an angry Aewult.

All of the stairways in the Tower were narrow and cramped. Whatever forgotten people had built it, they had cared little for elegance or comfort. Aewult was distracted by his simmering fury and half-missed a step. He stumbled and might have pitched forwards down the stairwell if he had not fallen against Mordyn, and the Chancellor had not seized his arm. The Bloodheir threw his hand off as soon as he had recovered his balance.

“You’re too gentle with them,” Aewult muttered as they resumed their descent. Almost falling, and doing so in Mordyn’s presence, would not help his mood.

“Hardly. I suspect Anyara nan Lannis-Haig is not the sort to crumble easily beneath threats or demands. I know Ilessa is not. You’d be better off finding a dog to beat if you want to disgorge your anger.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Shadowhand. My father told me to listen to your advice, not take your orders.”

“Well, my advice is not to waste your time on shouting at women. We have to make some quick decisions, and I’ve often found that’s best done over a good meal. There’s a fine roasted duck awaiting me — and you, if you’re willing — in the Steward’s House. Pallick had many faults, but he did at least have the sense to build and staff an excellent kitchen. Lagair’s kept it going since he took the office over.”

Aewult did not look enthusiastic, but he accepted the invitation. In the event, the promised duck was not yet ready. Lagair Haldyn’s wife apologised effusively and disappeared to berate the cooks. The Steward himself was absent. He had taken some of the captains of Aewult’s army hawking, if Mordyn remembered correctly. The Bloodheir planted himself in a chair by a fire and sat there in determined silence. Mordyn sat at a table and pretended to study some papers. He had already read them — he was consistently waking before dawn these days, and had many cold hours to occupy — but he judged it best to give Aewult’s mood a chance to soften.

The Chancellor’s mind wandered. It had always been a part of his nature to believe that everything mattered. The smallest of events, of details, could have some import when seen as a thread in the broader tapestry. That was partly his Tal Dyreen upbringing expressing itself: the island of his birth had always bred sharp minds and keen eyes. Had the Tal Dyreens been as collectively ambitious as they were greedy, that island could have been the world’s great rising power, instead of the Haig Blood. Then, of course, Mordyn might not have been inclined to abandon his roots; he might now be a merchant prince himself, instead of Gryvan oc Haig’s Shadowhand. But he was not. He served Gryvan because — he understood this about himself — he was drawn to power, to the mysterious, intangible process by which it was cultivated and used. He craved its proximity.

Equally mysterious, and what troubled him now, was the way in which power sometimes failed. By rights, the obvious power of the Haig Bloods should have been enough to deter foolhardy ventures on the part of the Black Road. Ragnor oc Gyre himself, Mordyn remained certain, had no wish to challenge Gryvan on the battlefield. Yet here they all were, fighting a war that no one except a few idiots in the Horin-Gyre Blood seemed to have wanted. And anyone as young and supposedly unsure of himself as Orisian oc Lannis-Haig should, by rights, be easy to control. Was it just childish arrogance, blind eagerness, that had led him to sneak out of Kolkyre like a common fugitive? Was he so unafraid of incurring Aewult’s — or Gryvan’s — displeasure, or did he simply not understand that he was doing so?

Most irritating of all was the possibility that Orisian knew exactly what he was doing, that he was deliberately trying to deprive the Haig Blood of its proper authority, trying to take away its victory. Perhaps the young Thane understood the importance of appearances. Or perhaps it was all Taim Narran’s idea. It was not beyond possibility that he was the helmsman of Orisian’s ship.

Aewult stirred at last. He took a log from the basket and threw it on the fire.

“Did Orisian really leave by the Kyre Gate, then?” the Bloodheir asked.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And Taim Narran went by the Skeil. Well, we know where he’s going, at least: Kolglas. What’s Orisian up to, though?”

Mordyn rose and went to stand nearer the fire. He flexed and massaged his hands, turning them in the warmth.

“Well, there are few possibilities if he’s heading east. He could be making for Ive, but I cannot think of a single reason why he would be doing that. He might simply be playing some silly game of misdirection, I suppose. He could get to Kolglas eventually, crossing over the Karkyre Peaks, but it would seem a particularly arduous bit of subterfuge. There’s always Highfast. Perhaps that’s where he’s going.”

“Highfast? Why would he be interested in Highfast?”

Mordyn shook his head. “I have no idea. He does seem to have a liking for na’kyrim, though.”

Aewult rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin. Mordyn could hear the rasp of the stubble. The Bloodheir was evidently too busy in the mornings to tend to his appearance. It was no great surprise, given that he shared his bed with that dancing girl he had brought up from Vaymouth.

“Well, Narran’s only got a few hundred men,” the Bloodheir muttered. “There can’t be many more waiting for him at Kolglas. Whatever games they think they’re playing, they still can’t do much without us.”

“That’s probably true. You know more about the fighting of battles than I do, but still, it might be best if we don’t allow them the chance to find out exactly what they can do.”

Aewult curled a lip at the Chancellor. “Generous of you to admit even such slight imperfection in your wisdom. Don’t imagine for a moment that I think it a sincere admission, though.”

Mordyn silently reprimanded himself. He should exercise a little more restraint in his dealings with Aewult. The man was not entirely stupid, and offending him not entirely without its dangers. A little more carefully crafted flattery, a touch more convincing deference, would be wise. But the man was so wearing, so… unrewarding. And, Mordyn had to acknowledge, he was tired. How gleefully surprised his numerous detractors would be to discover the many fallibilities and shortcomings of the Shadowhand they so excoriated. If his abilities matched even a fraction of those the great mass of people ascribed to him, he would have been lord of all the world long ago. But he was, in the end, nothing more than a man like any other; today, a tired and frustrated man. He bowed his head just enough to give Aewult an impression of regret.

“There is still ample time for you to overtake Taim Narran, Bloodheir. You can be in Kolglas yourself before he has any opportunity to test the strength of the Black Road. Once you are there, he would not dare defy your command. If you tell him to retire from the field, or to go and stand garrison in some forest village, he would have to do it.”

“So long as his Thane’s not there, yes.”

“Indeed. If you will allow me, I will see to Orisian oc Lannis-Haig myself. We — I — have underestimated that young man. Whether it is his stubbornness, his cunning or his stupidity that we have underestimated remains to be seen, but there is certainly something. I dislike my own mistakes more than any made by others, so I will give the correction of this one my closest attention.”

He tossed another log onto the fire. The flames crackled over the bark, curling it and peeling it back from the pale wood beneath.

“Our lives will be much more tiring if we do not get the measure of him,” he said. “We know the outcome of the present strife with the Black Road, after all: it is how things stand after your victory that will colour the next few years. And there are few things more troublesome than a Thane with a defiant streak.”

“He’ll have to learn the cost of defiance, then,” muttered Aewult.

“The boy is young, inexperienced. I suspect I can turn him back, wherever he thinks he is going. Unless he is the slow one out of that family, he should be open to persuasion, especially if I can talk to him alone. But failing all else, yes, some blunt warnings — perhaps even a threat or two — should clarify for him the importance of retaining your goodwill, and that of your father. It is time, I think, to find out how this new Thane of Lannis responds to the crack of the whip.”

Later, descending through the Tower of Thrones, Anyara stared at the back of her shieldman. Coinach was not overly tall, nor were his shoulders especially broad. Despite this, his was an impressive presence. He had a muscular bulk, and moved with the kind of restraint that Anyara associated with older, intensely capable men such as Taim Narran. For all his youth — he could not have been much more than twenty years old — he had an air of confidence. His face, though, was surprisingly gentle, for a warrior whom Taim had assured her was as skilled as any under his command.

Anyara still thought it foolish for Orisian to have forced a shieldman upon her, but the young man’s company was not unpleasant. Which was just as well for Coinach, since Anyara might otherwise have vented some of her many frustrations on him. She had been aghast when Orisian had told her he meant to return to Kolglas without her.

She knew his reasons, of course; better, she believed, than Orisian knew them himself. Only someone who had experienced the utter, dismantling grief of profound loss could understand the fear it engendered: the fear of its repetition, a constant anticipation that the cruel world might at any moment inflict a still more excessive, wanton punishment. Orisian meant to fend off that possibility by keeping her out of harm’s way. She understood that; understood the fear that haunted him. Almost every night, she experienced the consequences of loss herself. Her sleep was awash with evil dreams: dreams of darkness and fire and threat, dreams that had the same flavour as those she had suffered when the Heart Fever took possession of her. They had begun only after she had reached the comparative safety of Kolkyre, as if her mind, freed from the constant and immediate pressures of her captivity and then her flight to Koldihrve, had turned in on itself. Most mornings, Anyara woke drained, sometimes alarmed.

She had hidden it all from Orisian with meticulous care. She had no desire to add to his burdens, and therefore told him nothing of her dreams, or of the grief that was testing her inner defences to their limit. And she had not argued with him when he told her to remain here in the Tower of Thrones. Not for very long, at least. His face, as soon as she raised her voice, had betrayed the maelstrom of feelings that he could not express: regret, fear, guilt, love. But there had been an insistence there, too. She held her tongue. She allowed him to leave her behind, and hoped that doing so might ease his fears.

It left Anyara with a prodigious store of irritation and frustration, like a vat so full of vinegar that the acrid liquid trembled at the very lip, poised to spill forth at only the slightest nudge. Had Mordyn Jerain not arrived when he did, Aewult nan Haig might have been drenched. After the Chancellor and Bloodheir departed, she tried to return to her discussions with Ilessa oc Kilkry-Haig but found herself distracted by angry thoughts. The Thane’s wife was understanding.

“Go,” she said. “Take a walk in the gardens. The mind works poorly when the heart is so unsettled.”

So Anyara followed Coinach down the long spiral staircase, and watched his shoulders, and his short, coarse hair. He fitted her image of what a young warrior should be like. She hoped, and assumed, that she would never have cause to discover whether his abilities matched that image.

A few steps out into the open air were enough to tell Anyara that the weather was not all it might have been. Desultory sleet had begun to fall, gobbets of slushy ice spitting down. She glanced up at the cloud-filled sky.

“Not fit for a stroll, really,” she muttered.

“No,” Coinach agreed.

Anyara sighed. She hated the idea of sitting around. Bitter experience had long ago taught her that inactivity only undermined her defences. Movement, occupation: these were the things that kept her beyond the reach of the past and of memories.

“You’ve orders to teach me how to fight, haven’t you?” she asked Coinach.

“Yes, lady.” The flicker of unease in his expression was tiny and faint, but Anyara noticed it. She let it pass.

“Let’s begin that, then. So long as we can find somewhere sheltered.”

“The barracks, lady. They have the training blades we would need there, too.”

“Wooden?” she said with a trace of scorn. Coinach looked uncomfortable, perhaps even fearful of her displeasure, but he said nothing. There was an appealing boyishness about his expression, Anyara thought. He was, she reminded herself, not much older than her.

“Very well. Come, we can get rain capes from the guardroom. They keep them there for such moments.”

The little room had been hollowed out of the thick wall of the Tower. Its walls were bare stone, and their smooth, hard surfaces were inflating the noise of the argument Anyara found in progress. A single guard, who obviously wished with all his heart that he was elsewhere, stood in the corner making a determined effort to go unnoticed. A maid, her cheek glowing from the aftermath of some recent blow, tears on her face, rushed out even as Anyara entered. The girl — who could not be more than fifteen or sixteen — brushed past, barely even noticing Anyara, and ran for the main stairway.

Ishbel, Aewult nan Haig’s notorious companion, stood in the centre of the guardroom. She was shouting after the fleeing maidservant.

“The red one! With the black hood! The one you should have brought in the first place!”

She glanced at Anyara. Their eyes met for a moment, but Ishbel seemed not to recognise Anyara — or not to care. Her gaze snapped aside, still pursuing the maid.

“You’ll not make me wear these rags!” Ishbel cried out.

“You struck the girl?” Anyara enquired softly.

That was enough to hold Ishbel’s attention. She was truly beautiful, Anyara thought: flawless skin, sleek dark hair. Perfect, full cheeks that were suffused with a rosy blush of anger.

“She forgot my cape,” Ishbel snapped. “Then thinks I should wear one of those.” She gestured at the plain rain capes that hung on one wall of the guardroom. “Look at them!”

Anyara did as she was bid. “They seem fit for their purpose to me. I was seeking one myself.” She smiled at the other woman, and not out of affection or politeness.

Ishbel glared at her. Anyara thought there was a moment of doubt, perhaps recognition, in there. Perhaps she knows who I am now, she thought.

“Not good enough for you?” she asked Ishbel sweetly. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the guard hang his head and shrink still further back into the corner.

“I didn’t come all this way to wander around this miserable city in the rain dressed like a fisherwoman.”

“Oh. Why did you come all this way? To strike your servants? Or just to keep the Bloodheir’s bed warm?” She heard Coinach groan behind her, and saw Ishbel open her mouth to respond. “I was always taught that the only people who struck their servants were those who deserved worse themselves,” she said before either of them could interrupt her.

Such a twist of anger then disfigured Ishbel’s fair face that Anyara imagined for a moment that she was about to be struck herself. She knew it was foolish — a thought that did not become the sister of a Thane — but she almost relished the prospect: it would, at least, offer a release for her caged frustrations. Surely no one could object if she struck back? Instead, Ishbel’s face settled back into an expression of studied contempt.

“And I was taught that it’s best to keep your nose out other people’s affairs,” she snapped.

Coinach pushed in front of Anyara, nodding almost respectfully to Ishbel. He took one of the capes down from its hook.

“We have what we came for,” he said to Anyara as he settled the cape on her shoulders and gently — so gently that it was little more than a suggestion in his hands — sought to turn her away. “It might be best to be on our way before the weather worsens.”

Anyara allowed herself to be ushered out into the sleet. She paused outside the Tower, adjusting the cape and pulling up its hood.

“I didn’t know it was a shieldman’s task to guard me from the likes of her,” she muttered.

“From whatever harm may threaten, I think, lady,” the warrior said. “Whether self-inflicted or otherwise.”

She tugged aside the edge of her hood in order to frown at him, but he was looking up at the sky.

“May even turn to snow soon,” he mused. “Best to get down to the barracks.”

He said it with an air of such casual observation that her irritation faded. It would not, after all, have been wise to stand there trading ever more barbed insults with Aewult’s lover. The Haig Blood hardly needed more reasons to dislike her own.

“Come, then,” she said as she set off down the path that curled away through the bleak gardens. “What will you be teaching me today?”

“We should start with the knife, I imagine. Always easy to carry a knife somewhere about you.”

“A knife? That’ll not help me much if some White Owl’s trying to stick me with a spear, or some Inkallim’s chopping me up with a sword.”

She thought she heard Coinach sigh then. It was a faint, resigned sound. It made her smile, and she almost reached out to pat him encouragingly on the back.

“We’ll make it a big knife, lady,” he said. “The biggest we can find.”