The Lords Of The Crimson River

Chapter 21

Miera had come down from the keep, to find her grandfather already at breakfast in his private chamber. He looked her over as she sat down on the far side of the table.

«You are well, Miera?»

«Now don't you start fussing over me, Grandfather. I'm going to have quite enough of that from Richard.»

«You have told him you are with child?»

«Of course.»

«Miera, your tongue-«

She smiled and reached out a hand to him. «Grandfather, forgive me. But I think you must understand that the way I speak to men now is what Richard taught me. I know his way is not the way of the Crimson River, but-«

Cyron threw up his hands. «Now it is my turn to ask you not to fuss. I understand. Very well. Blade's way with women is indeed his own, but I will not say anything against him because of that. A man who fights and leads as he does can be forgiven many faults.»

Miera wanted to go around to the other side of the table and kiss her grandfather. But she saw a servant approaching, and decided to wait until he was out of earshot.

The servant was a tall, heavy man, with a bushy head of graying red hair. He announced that six Lords from Gualdar were in the courtyard below but would not intrude on His Grace's meal. Cyron thanked them for the courtesy and promised to receive them in an hour. The servant bent to offer the Duke a raisin-stuffed chicken. Miera thought she saw metal gleaming in the man's hair. Now why should he be wearing a comb like a woman?

Suddenly the man's hands went limp and the chicken on its massive silver platter crashed to the table. Chicken and raisins flew everywhere.

«You clumsy oaf-!» roared Cyron.

«Your Grace, I beg you. Be merciful. I don't know what came over me….» The man clutched frantically at his hair. Suddenly his right hand tightened into a fist, then sprang free of his hair, clutching a long thin dagger. Miera screamed. Her grandfather looked up, just in time to take the dagger in his right eye. She screamed again as he slumped back into his chair, blood running from his nose and mouth. The murderer jerked the dagger free and turned to run.

This made him turn his back on Miera. She hurled herself across the table, her gown snagging on something and ripping to the waist, but she clutched him by the belt. He bellowed and turned, stabbing with the dagger. She felt the steel drive into her back, but it seemed no more than a pinprick. She clutched the belt tighter and started to scream, not in pain but in the hope of drawing the guards.

In this she was successful. But by the time they came, the servant had stabbed her twelve times, then picked up the serving platter and hit her over the head: She was unconscious, and it was not until they'd finished binding the killer that the guards realized she wasn't dead. By that time the «Lords from Gualdar,» who'd been planning to cover the assassin's escape, or if necessary finish his work, were riding for their lives. Every Lord in the house who could find a horse leaped into the saddle and chased after them.

«At least the dagger wasn't poisoned,» Chenosh concluded dully. «So she may live, if her skull is not broken too badly.»

Blade only twisted his fingers together in impotent fury. He wanted to strangle someone with his bare hands, but no one within reach deserved that fate. Even if someone did, killing wouldn't bring back Duke Cyron or cure Miera.

«Well, Your Grace-«he began, when he could trust himself to speak.

«Please, Blade!»

«No, Chenosh. You are now Duke of Nainan. The sooner you accept it and start behaving like a Duke, the sooner your grandfather will be avenged and his work finished.»

The youth sighed. «Very well. Then my first order as Duke of Nainan is that you do not call me 'Your Grace.' Now what were you going to say?»

«I was going to ask how many of the assassins do we have for questioning?»

«The killer himself is alive. So is one of the six riders. They caught up with a second, but could not take him alive.»

«He was probably the one who knew all the secrets,» said Blade sourly. «However, two prisoners are more than I expected. I think you should reward the guards. Soon-while they're still alive to spend the money.»

«I will send you back to Castle Ranit yourself, to give them the money and hear what the prisoners say,» said Chenosh. And see Miera. The thought hung unspoken in the air between them. «I will come-«

«You won't leave this castle without at least a hundred armed Lords around you!» snapped Blade.

Chenosh's face hardened. «My second order to you as Duke of Nainan is not to interrupt me. Let me finish what I have to say. You may find it wiser than you think!»

«I'm sorry, Chenosh.» Blade realized just how badly shaken he must be, to have been so rude. Chenosh would need all the help he could get to uphold his authority.

«No harm done this time.» Chenosh sighed. «I will return to Castle Ranit as soon as Alsin can spare me enough Lords for an escort. He will command here until I return or send orders.»

Blade rose. «I don't know what I might be riding into, at Castle Ranit. So I'll leave Cheeky here, with a message to trust you if I don't come back. If I don't, I think Lord Gennar or Lord Ebass should be given command over the Guardsmen. Both will be obeyed.»

«It shall be as you wish, Blade.»

«Good.» Blade stalked out of the stable. Men cleared a path for him as they saw the look in his eyes and the set of his jaw.

Blade rode back to Castle Ranit as fast as the relays of horses would carry him. He still tried to spare his mounts as much as he could. With war approaching, Nainan and its allies would need every sound horse they had.

He didn't try to spare himself. He ate nothing, drank only water, and said hardly anything to anybody as he pounded down the dusty roads. By the time he reached Castle Ranit, he was a red-eyed, dust-caked figure out of a nightmare.

He found Miera unconscious, lying facedown in the great bed where they'd made love and conceived the child which now might never be born. They'd cut off all her hair to bandage the fractured skull. She looked more like a shrunken doll than the woman Blade had held in his arms no more than two days before.

The doctors assured him of the fact that she was dangerously wounded but that she might survive; certainly they would do everything they could. Blade didn't take much comfort from this. The doctors would try to be optimistic no matter what, and they could hardly promise not to do their best. He had nothing to say to them, so he went to look at Duke Cyron's body.

The embalmers were just finishing their work. In the summer heat, embalming was needed to prevent decay even for the few days it would take Chenosh to return for the funeral. With a patch over his ruined eye, Cyron looked as if he'd fallen into a particularly sound sleep after a long day's work. All the servants and even some of the Lords were tiptoeing in and out of the room, and speaking in whispers while they were in it.

Blade spent the rest of the day putting things about the castle in order. The next morning, he awoke to find someone shaking him.

«Lord Blade, Lord Blade!»

«Eh, urmph. What…?» He felt like a bear prematurely wakened from hibernation and only a little more intelligent. Grief, anger, and sheer exhaustion had drained him to the point where he could not spring awake instantly as he usually did.

«Lord Blade! The-the woman Sarylla from Castle Issos. She is here. She says she wants to care for the Lady Miera.»

That brought him to full consciousness. «Send her in.»

Sarylla must have used the relay stations to get here as fast as she had. She looked as if she'd been dragged by the horses rather than riding them. She didn't want to talk about her journey, saying only that she'd had much valuable help. Blade suspected that she had traded sex for fresh horses, and didn't want to reveal the names of the men. He dismissed the matter from his mind. She had done no harm, and if she could actually help Miera…

«I was learning to be an herb woman when my father was taken away,» she said. «After a year in Castle Issos, I became doctor to the women of the household. I treated many stab wounds, and more than a few broken heads, when Duke Raskod or other men grew angry or took pleasure in giving pain. Only two women who were not dead when I came to them died in the five years I did this work. I do not say that I know more than the doctors. I do say that I may know some things that they do not, to help the Lady Miera.»

It was grasping at straws, but when there was nothing else to grasp… «Go and do your best for her. I will send word to the doctors that they are to treat you as one of their own.»

«Thank you, Lord Blade. I hope-I hope I may do work good enough to pay back my debt to you.» Now her eyes were on the floor, and Blade could have sworn she was blushing. «How is Lord Gennar?»

«He is well,» said Blade. «He should be returning to Castle Ranit with Duke Chenosh in a few days.» By the time she turned away, Sarylla was definitely blushing.

Lord Gennar returned to Castle Ranit with Chenosh four days later. So did Alsin and more than a hundred other Lords. So did Cheeky.

By that time the questioning of the prisoners was finished. For once in his life, Blade was able to sit and watch men being tortured without feeling particularly sorry for them. They'd done something monstrously evil, knowing that it was evil, knowing that it would lead to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. The only way of saving any of those innocents was to learn everything the guilty ones knew.

By the time Chenosh returned, Blade was able to inform him that at least three of the six mounted «Lords» in the plot were friends of Orric. They'd won over the servant who struck the actual blow by promising to pay his debts to a money lender. The man had been desperate, so afraid he would have to sell his daughters to a brothel to raise the money that he'd been easy game.

The guilty «Lord» died under the torture, and Chenosh had his body thrown to the dogs. The servant was hanged, and after this execution, Chenosh led the way to the Sacred Grove for his grandfather's funeral.

Like Blade's wedding, Duke Cyron's funeral rites were performed as quickly as law, custom, and the dignity of the House of Nainan allowed. The priest threw the torch onto the pyre less than an hour after the body was laid there. As he joined in the Chant for the Dead, Blade again saw the flames light up the metal reflector behind the altar. He'd hoped to return to the Sacred Grove and speak with the priest about that reflector, thinking that perhaps the old man could tell him something about its origins. Was it, as he suspected, part of a spaceship which brought the Feathered Ones to this world?

But now that he had returned to the Sacred Grove and the priest was within earshot, asking about the reflector was the furthest thing from Blade's mind. Lord Leighton would doubtless grumble when he heard that Blade put respect to the dead of Dimension X before research for the Project. Let him grumble. Lord Leighton had never fought among a strange people, never risking his life and shedding his blood for them, never loving one of their women and obeying one of their leaders until he felt himself one of them. He could not understand how such things seemed to Blade.

At the council of war after the funeral, Chenosh announced that he would ride to seek aid from King Handryg of the West Kingdom. «The murderers did not name their paymaster, but if it was not Fedron of the East I will be greatly surprised,» the young Duke explained. «Handryg has a name for hardness and quick temper, but not for base, vile treachery. Also, we will be helping him to strike at the East Kingdom while it is least expecting it. He may take his payment for the war from the Easterners, rather than from us.» He smiled. — «I hope I will not sound unlordly if I say that we should not pay more for King Handryg's help than we must.»

Some of the Lords did not understand, but no one seemed to be disagreeing out loud. Blade was pleased. If Chenosh had reasoned out this decision on his own, he was taking charge very well. If he'd had advice, it was good advice.

Now it was Alsin's turn. A hundred Lords of Nainan and fifty of Skandra would ride with Chenosh into the West. «We cannot spare more from the battles to come. That will be enough to keep any lesser Lord of the West from treachery against our Duke. As for King Handryg, we can only pray to the Fathers to make both his heart and his steel true.»

Blade knew there was a good deal more they could do than pray to the Fathers. He also knew what the council would think of a proposal that had been forming in his own mind: to arm the peasants in the land the same way the Kings armed their peasants. That way the united Duchies of the Crimson River would have a lot more troops of their own. But Blade also knew that if he were to attempt to lead such a peasant army he would spend the war in prison. Better to stay free and do what he could for the villagers quietly, when no Lord was looking over his shoulder.

This didn't keep him from laying some plans now, in the quiet hours of a sleepless night. He rose early, to stand beside Alsin on the roof of the keep and watch Chenosh ride west under the usual cloud of dust. Then he went down to the arsenal and asked the blacksmith who'd made his trick lance for a count of all the spare weapons in the castle which a man on foot could use.

It was a pity he couldn't bring Romiss the Breeder into his plans. The Breeder was probably the best leader among the non-Lords of Nainan and might be willing to tell Blade the secrets of the Feathered Ones, in payment for Blade's trust. But Romiss had also served Orric, the man whose friends murdered Duke Cyron and crippled Miera. Blade wouldn't trust him that far.

Then, of course, there were Blade's own Guardsmen. These men were an impressive fighting force in their own right, even without a peasant army.

As he left the arsenal, he passed a shadowy corner where Lord Gennar and Sarylla stood. Gennar's arm was around her shoulders, and he seemed to be talking earnestly. Blade smiled, for the first time in what seemed like months. If Lord Gennar had so far set aside his rank that he could fall in love with a blacksmith's daughter who had a «lordly soul,» he also might see reason-or at least see «lordly souls» in other villagers besides the woman he loved.