Prisoner of Haven

17

The sound of the lone horse drifted through the city, and those who heard it thought twice before looking to see who rode. Those who looked saw her riding by like a dark ghost, a demon in the weeds of mourning. No one looked on her for long, and those who did look heard the sound of her riding long after she’d passed, before she came around again.

None doubted that they would dream of her down the long nights of the years to come—Lady Mearah on the tall black mare in the night.

She went to the places where the three gallows trees stood—once, again, and again. In this way, she marked the passing of the hours. She looked into the face of each of the dead. She stared into the starting eyes, laughed at the swollen tongues and cocked her head to match the angle of each broken neck.

All this did nothing to warm the ice from her heart, nothing to light the darkness in her soul. And yet, such rounds used to do that. Rides like this across midnight battlegrounds, chasing reavers from corpses, giving the final grace to whatever man or woman of hers she found in the last throes ... such rides had always assuaged the fury of knowing how many of her knights had died.

She rode, and she thought that the mindless jackals who denned in this forsaken city might imagine she’d hung the two elves and the human boy for killing knights. When she thought so, she laughed, and the bitterness of that laughter rang in echo though the city.

She’d killed to avenge Tavar, the dark elf who was not one of the glorious knights of the abandoned army of Takhisis. He’d been more than they, better, but riding through the city to curse the dead did nothing to make it easier for Lady Mearah to return to her narrow bed and lie next to emptiness. He had known what it meant to hear the voice of your father as he cursed you, the sobs of your mother as she named you Fallen. He knew what it was to laugh at the weeping and curse the weepers for fools.

Tavar had known what it was to take what he wanted. That way he’d taken her one night in a battleground tent. Because he’d wanted her, and standing before her, a man afire, he’d made her want him. No one ever had claimed her that way before. No one ever would again. On the table near her bed was a red stone that would never beat to the rhythm of her lover’s pulse again.

It might be said that Lady Mearah, she who had never loved anyone, had loved the dark elf Tavar. Still, it could not be said that her ride through Haven’s streets, her grief naked to the eyes of all who dared to peer through a shutter’s crack, eased an ounce of her pain. The hangings hadn’t. When the pain shifted enough, she would howl out her grief, a she-wolf mourning her slain mate. It wouldn’t help.

Someone had betrayed her dark elf. Someone had wanted him dead. It wasn’t intuition that told her that. Word whispering through the barracks of Old Keep told her.

Lady Mearah would find that one, and she would kill him in such a way that Haven would never forget it.

Usha walked alone in the green gloom of Loren’s garden, a restless wanderer among the sculpted groves and garths of Steadfast come out to breathe the early morning air. Rowan had come for her early, as arranged, but Usha had been too restless to stay indoors.

The air in the garden was not as pleasant as she’d hoped. The smell of fish dead of stranding at the edges of the shrinking river lurked on the changing breeze. High above the river as Old Keep, Loren’s home had a good view of the White-rage river, and the gardens ran out the edge of a sweep of hillside down to the water.

From the height, Usha turned to look back at the house. Light shone from the ground-floor windows as the servants began the day, rousing the kitchen fires, pulling linen from the cupboards and laying the table in the great hall, checking the wine cellar and polishing the silver. Though they did not have much better food at Steadfast than anyone else in the city, tonight Loren’s table would feed his guests well. Tonight Loren would host Sir Radulf, and he’d feed more than the commander of the occupation. In the past Sir Radulf had come and gone in the city with few men in attendance, but in the last few weeks he did not go even so far as Steadfast without a squad of six knights. Few of these knights were sons or daughters of nobility, but they were knights, and Loren’s tradition of hospitality demanded that he treat them accordingly. While their commander dined with the family and friends of his host in the solar, the six who came to guard him would dine in the great hall on fare nearly as fine as those above.

“And you will attend, won’t you, my love?” Loren had asked when the arrangements for the feast were being made.

My love... so he named her, as she named him, though since the night at the Ivy they had not lain together. My love, he said, and Usha heard longing in the words. Though she ached for him and in unguarded moments tried to recapture the feeling of the night they’d been together, the warmth of him in her bed, the sound of his heart beating when she lay in his arms, she maintained her quarters at the Ivy. Even so, Usha was often at Steadfast, and so of course she would attend the dinner.

Now, in the waking morning, Usha looked over the river and the merchant fleet bobbing in the water. It had been reduced by half as Sir Radulf manned more ships to his liking and sent them out to trade. They had been beautiful to see—proud sails bellying in the wind, ratlines humming. The city’s coffers would fill with profits from these voyages, and Sir Radulf would prosper on the taxes collected.

“It’s no different than any administration,” Loren had said to Usha, a fortnight before on the night after the sailing. “My ships used to come back to Haven, fatten my accounts, and the taxes I’d pay to the city would fill theirs.”

He’d looked like he believed that, as though he balanced it all out in his thinking and found that everything was all right.

“Of course,” he’d added, “there really is nothing different. Things work as they always have.”

“It’s very different,” Usha had insisted. He’d not been interested in hearing that, but she hadn’t let it stop her. “You know it, Loren. No lord mayor of Haven has ever collected taxes with the threat of death.”

He’d said nothing, not to agree or disagree, and Usha didn’t press. She’d come to know the meanings of his silences. This one, she believed, meant he was thinking about something he didn’t like to consider.

There were enough things like that, these days. In some quarters of the city a low rumble of discontent had arisen against the man known as Sir Radulf’s favorite. Things were not working as they always had, and if Loren had made his deal with the dark knight in the cause of saving lives, Usha thought the knight was supporting that cause poorly.

Despite the increase in the number of dragons and knights, the daring or the desperate still fled Haven on their own or with the help of Qui’thonas.

Each escape angered Sir Radulf more and, Usha suspected, fed a fear of rebellion. With swift efficiency he issued harsh rules restricting what could be said in public, and no group of three or larger was tolerated in public places. People no longer moved in congenial groups in the market to gossip or complain, and the custom in taverns fell off at once. Those caught violating these rules were harshly and publicly punished. At Lady Mearah’s discretion, executions could be and were ordered.

Qui’thonas. In these days, Usha barely allowed herself to think the name. The subject of refugees had lately become a frequent topic of Loren’s concern. Only yesterday morning at breakfast in the Ivy’s common room he’d said, “Sir Radulf has been entertaining the idea that the folk who leave Haven are being helped by an organized effort.”

Usha’s heart had thumped hard against her ribs, but she’d continued to spread peach jam—among the last to come up from Rusty’s root cellar—on her bread with not the least tremor of her hand. “Indeed? It would take a tremendous amount of organizing, wouldn’t you think?”

He did think so, and he also thought Sir Radulf had a point. “There used to be an organization helping elves out of Qualinesti.”

Usha’s mouth had gone dry. She’d set the knife down carefully. It only rattled a little against the plate.

“But I heard it all fell apart a few years ago,” Loren said, a note of wistfulness in his voice. “It was a heroic effort, and no one ever knew how it was organized or who funded it. Me, I think it was the work of Laurana, the Qualinesti Queen Mother. Poor woman, she spent so much of her time sending secret couriers here and there trying to get help for her people. You don’t hear much about her anymore, and no one knows how they fare across the river now or whether her son sits on the throne at all.”

“Yes, it’s a shame,” Usha had murmured, then asked, “Would you like another piece of bread?”

Recalling that conversation now, Usha turned away from the river. As it had for days, the sky hung low over the city. The white skins of the birches in the little grove where she’d picnicked with Tamara were the brightest thing in the garden. The chestnuts and the elms seemed weary, the beds of fragrant herbs surrounding the fish pool drooped in exhaustion. She turned her steps toward the maze of boxwood hedges and nodded greeting to a young woman carrying hedge-clippers. Like the carriage driver Rowan, this girl had elf blood.

“Go easy, mistress,” the girl said, shifting the clippers from one hand to another. “The maze can be a challenge.”

Usha thanked her, but found no challenge in the maze. She’d picked out the pattern of it the first time she’d strolled there. Now it was like walking through the market, easily done and with little thought. It did nothing to take the edge off her restlessness. She came out and walked the round of flagstone paths and found it wearying. When she sat on the curved stone bench beside the fish pond, the weight of the humid day oppressed her.

She looked at the light from the windows of the upper story of the house, those in Loren’s chambers and Tamara’s. Nothing would ease her restlessness today. Nothing would ease her until Sir Radulf had his supper, his private talk with Loren, and his hour of pretending to be a well-met guest in the home of a man whose city and whose hopes he held in his mailed hand. When she saw him ride away, his dark pack in attendance, then she would relax.

In the shadowless morning, Usha felt something cold slide over her. She looked up to see Sir Radulf’s black dragon Ebon, wings wide and gliding on the air currents over the river.

The sweet notes of Tamara’s lute drifted through the solar, sometimes stirring, sometimes soothing her audience. Very likely no musician in Haven had a more rapt audience. Most here were family—her father, his cousin Lorelia, her husband Havelock. Then there was Sir Radulf and Usha. A congenial audience, to be sure, but Usha thought the girl’s lute playing skilled enough to charm a gathering of strangers.

“My dear,” Lorelia said at Usha’s shoulder, “the child is lovely, isn’t she? And so talented! A true luthier.”

Usha forbore to smile at Lorelia’s use of the word for “maker of lutes” to mean “player of lutes” and agreed that Tamara was lovely.

Havelock, looking thin and strained in Sir Radulf’s presence, nodded but said nothing. Usha had hardly heard his voice all evening but to murmur agreement when compliments were presented to his host. The man looked like one in the grip of a wasting sickness. It was a quiet company. Unusually so. All talk had been congenial, often amusing on the surface, but something darker lurked below the amenities.

The mood was fed by the raucous sounds of Sir Radulf’s guard feasting in the great hall below. Four men and two women, they sounded like they were feeding at the barracks rather than dining at the gracious table of their lord’s host. Snatches of bawdy songs punctuated rough laughter, and twice a woman’s voice lifted in sharp protest as a servant was manhandled.

Loren’s face paled to hear this and grew harder each time Sir Radulf ignored it. The clatter of knives against pewter plates sounded harshly. Usha glanced at Sir Radulf, and then away. In truth, she preferred the rowdy feasting of his men to the table habits of their master. She’d sat beside him at dinner, first chilled then made faintly queasy by the strange precision of his table habits. He cut his meat into slices so thin they might be called slivers then carefully placed each on the plate. She’d never seen a man cut a grape in half before eating it. She had to look away as he carefully flayed the breast of duck.

Usha slipped her hand into Loren’s. He absently returned the pressure of her fingers then turned his attention to Tamara, his eyes the brooding color of the candle-smoke hanging in the still air. He had the look of a man who thought his daughter would vanish away, disappearing as the music she made faded.

In Sir Radulf’s eye, Usha thought, Tamara shone like a miser’s pile of treasure. As Tamara played, his hand twitched a little on his knee, as though it was hard for him to keep from touching her.

Usha’s skin prickled. His hands would not caress. They would possess, and it seemed that the knight’s hunger for Loren’s blue-eyed daughter had grown sharper since the day she’d met them in Lorelia’s garden.

The music fell away in a silvery drift of notes, and Tamara stood to make a proud curtsy in acknowledgement of the applause of her audience. Her face, naturally pale, seemed even whiter than before but for two hectic spots of red, like a fever flush. Her sapphire eyes shone. Usha saw the pulse in her throat racing.

In her hand, Loren’s had grown cold. He lifted Usha’s hand and kissed it, as though for courage, then stood.

“Friends,” he said, “thank you for joining us tonight. It’s always a fine thing to share meat and mead with good company.” He gathered them all in with a glance and a smile that showed nothing of the strain Usha heard far beneath his words. “And of course it is an excellent thing to share good news.”

Lorelia’s startled glance darted between her husband and her cousin. The color in Tamara’s cheeks deepened when Sir Radulf, sleek and smiling, gestured. She put aside her lute and glanced at her father before going to take the knight’s hand.

Oh, Usha thought, heart sinking. Oh, no. She seemed to hear the words before Loren spoke them. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Friends,” Loren said, “it is my pleasure—” In the great hall, someone raised a shout or a cheer. Others hailed it in rowdy laughter. “It is my honor to tell you that Sir Radulf has sought my daughter’s hand, and I have granted it.”

Stunned silence lasted for a noticeable half-beat until Lorelia rushed breathlessly into the gap.

“My dear!” she cried, embracing Tamara. “Oh, child, what news!” Fluttering, she congratulated Sir Radulf, “For it’s only proper to congratulate the groom on his good fortune.” She turned to Tamara. “But of course, one wishes the bride good luck in her choice.”

Uneasy laughter followed at the aptness of the old tradition, then congratulations overrode. Usha hung back, standing in the circle of Loren’s arms, to let Tamara’s family offer their good wishes first. When the time came, she congratulated Sir Radulf, who bowed over her hand and said, “I hope you wish us well, for you are very dear to my Tamara’s father and therefore important to me. I hope,” he said, keeping hold of her hand as she started to withdraw, “that you will paint one of your famous portraits of my Tamara, as my wedding gift to her.”

Usha freed her hand and glanced at Loren, who nodded slightly. “I will be happy to paint our Tamara. Such a lovely subject will surely dance onto my canvas as easily as music dances from her fingers.”

The knight’s chill expression said he liked her pronoun less than she’d liked his. About that Usha didn’t care a whit.

When she embraced Tamara, very quietly Usha said, “Child, never forget that when you need a friend, I am here.”

In her arms Tamara quivered, but not with fear. Usha saw pride and a kind of triumph in her eyes.

In the steamy garden, the night thick and dark and smelling of the foul river, Usha walked in silence beside Loren. She held his hand, and through flesh and bone and sinew she felt his sorrow. Beyond the walls of the garden the city was quiet. They no longer heard the rumble of carriage wheels or cart wheels as they used to do. What voices they did hear were those of Loren’s servants going about their work, safely within their master’s walls.

“I wish it would rain,” Usha said softly.

Loren nodded but absently. In the sky, dragons wheeled and turned.

“My love,” Loren said, answering the unspoken question between them. “If all the free realms fall, as Haven has, I must ensure my daughter’s safety. The safest place will be with the winner.”

Usha pressed his hand, a silent answer. It had never seemed a good enough reason, and Usha had never been able to answer the old question of what she would do.

Loren was a good man caught in difficult circumstances, and this one was his own making. She wanted to suggest that Tamara be taken out of the city by Aline’s people, but she could not. She did not admit that she couldn’t trust a man so close to Sir Radulf.

They passed the garden’s loveliest spot, a reflecting pool ringed with several varieties of weary, rain-hungry mint. Tamara would be leaving this place, and whether she admitted it or not, she would leaving the peace and security of being a cherished daughter in a rich man’s home for the instability of being the wife of a knight.

Usha made a sudden decision. In the portrait Sir Radulf asked for, she would create this delightful garden as the setting for the young woman who soon would leave it.

“Loren,” she said, her voice low and soft. “Leave off worrying. What’s done is done, and we can only hope it is done for the best.” She looked back to the house and the lights in Tamara’s bed chamber. “It’s been a long day and a very long night. Can we call Rowan to bring the carriage around?”

He looked at her, holding her hand. “If you wish.”

But she didn’t wish. She wanted him.

“Loren—”

“Stay,” he said.

Please, she thought. Don’t ask, don’t.

“Usha, stay.”

Usha looked up at the sky, at the dragons circling. The wind freshened, and this time it carried more than the failing promise of rain-scent. A cool drop and then another splashed onto her cheek. Lightning flashed, thunder crackled, and in the next moment the sky poured down rain.

Laughing suddenly, Usha said, “I think I’ve made up my mind.”

She tugged Loren’s hand and the two ran back to the house.

In the morning, Haven woke to find the river overflowing its banks, the willows and many of the elms along the banks uprooted. Cellars and cisterns had been turned into mud holes.

Loren’s gardeners cried woe, for their small, green realm lay savaged by the storm, battered and unrecognizable, as were all the gardens in the city. But Usha, standing at the bedroom window, knew she’d made the right decision to set Tamara’s portrait in the garden, to seat the girl on the curved stone bench beside the fish pond. She would recreate the beautiful space of flower beds and birch groves she remembered even then, looking out at the storm-wrack and ruin.

“My lady.”

Lady Mearah looked up, whetstone in hand, her sword across her knee. She sat alone in the vast armory, that place where her knights used to practice. No one had come near her for hours. No one wanted to look into those dark eyes and see her sorrow and the fire of her lust for revenge. Agmar, however, didn’t seem to mind. Sir Radulf’s squire had seen enough rage and blood-lust to be able to look into the lady knight’s eyes and not flinch.

“Tell me,” she said, knowing he came from his master. She didn’t look up to the gallery or the doorway that led into Sir Radulf’s wardroom. The knight had been there all night and most of the day, honing his plans to tighten his grip on Haven as keenly as Lady Mearah now honed her sword.

Agmar bowed. “I have a name for you, compliments of my master.”

Mearah put the whetstone by. “He knows who killed—” She made a small sound, like bitter laughter withheld. “He knows who caused the dark elf’s death? How?”

“By the ones you hanged, my lady. Tavar was last seen going into the Grinning Goat. We can guess he went out with the knights on the word of a man who knows most of the gossip and all the rumors that surge around Haven.”

“The mage.”

Agmar nodded. “Madoc Diviner.”