Tower Lord

CHAPTER TEN

Lyrna

The holdfast of Baron Hughlin Banders lay thirty some miles from the Asraelin border, a sprawling structure of varying architecture and mismatched brickwork, some new, some clearly ancient. It sat in the centre of a large estate of forest and rolling hills, well-stocked with deer. They arrived as evening was coming on, greeted a good distance from the main house by a company of knights, over fifty fully armoured men approaching in battle order. The company’s leader revealed a nose marked by a single horizontal scar as he raised his visor, his evident suspicion dissipating at sight of Lyrna. Despite his ruffian-like appearance he possessed the cultured vowels and manners of a blood-born knight.

“My most abject apologies, Highness,” he said, having dismounted to sink to one knee, head lowered. “Such a large party, we mistook your intent.”

“Do not concern yourself, my lord,” Lyrna replied. She had always found the elaborate manners of the Renfaelin knightly class somewhat tedious and was in scant mood to indulge them now. “I come in search of Baron Banders. Is he at home?”

“He is, Highness.” The knight rose and quickly remounted. “Allow me the honour of escorting you to his presence.”

Baron Banders was waiting at the door to his home, unarmoured but holding a scabbarded long sword. Behind him a young woman stared up at Lyrna, clutching the hand of a lanky youth, who, despite his height, couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

“Highness.” Banders’s tone and expression were both carefully neutral as he sank to one knee before her. “I bid you welcome. My home is yours.”

“And I’ll gladly stay the night, my lord,” she replied, slipping from Surefoot’s back to stride forward, extending a hand. “But I do require a promise from you first.”

His eyes widened a little at the hand she placed before his lips, famously a sign of great favour she rarely bestowed, before pressing a kiss to her fingers. “Promise, Highness?” he asked, rising as she stepped back.

“Yes, no banquets.” She smiled. “I should like only a quiet meal tonight, and the pleasure of your company of course.”

He introduced the young woman as Ulice, his ward, and the boy as Arendil, her son. No family names were offered but Lyrna’s eyes picked out the similarities between Banders’s and Ulice’s features with ease, the colour and set of their eyes were almost identical. The lack of a family name marked her as an unacknowledged bastard, though one enjoying her father’s care if not his name judging by the clothes she wore. Strangely the boy’s face showed only a slight similarity to his mother and none at all to his grandfather. His eyes were blue whilst theirs were brown and his hair, an untidy cascade of dark curls reaching to his shoulders, made a stark contrast to the sandy mane of his mother and the thinning grey crop adorning Banders’s pate.

They ate a well-cooked but not lavish meal in the main hall, Davoka clumsily dismembering her food with the alien cutlery the servants placed beside her plate with every course. She eyed Lyrna’s actions closely, attempting to copy her grip on the various utensils, mostly without success.

“Eat however you wish,” Lyrna told her. “There will be no offence.”

“You learned my ways,” Davoka replied, frowning in concentration. “I learn yours.”

“You speak Lonak!” Arendil exclaimed, staring at Lyrna in open astonishment. Banders thumped a hand onto the table and the boy quickly added, “Highness.”

“Speaks it better than me, sometimes,” Davoka said, chewing a mouthful of quail. “Knows words I don’t.”

“The princess’s accomplishments are a great example,” Ulice said. She had a shy demeanour, almost fearful, but the gaze she offered Lyrna was rich in honest admiration. “And now she brings a peace that has eluded men for centuries. Would that all ladies could be so accomplished.”

“I hear it’s a hard country north of the pass,” Banders said. “Never been there meself. Fought plenty of Lonak though.” His gaze shifted to Davoka, who grinned back as she chewed.

“Thankfully, those days are now behind us,” Lyrna said. She lifted her goblet, raising it in a formal toast. “Will you drink with me, my lord? To peace?”

Banders’s smile was faint but he lifted his goblet readily enough, drinking as she did. “Peace is always welcome, Highness.”

“Indeed. It also seems to be a concern for your Fief Lord. I had occasion to meet him on the road.”

Ulice’s fork made a loud clatter as she dropped it onto her plate. She blanched as Lyrna’s gaze swung to her, looking down, now visibly pale.

“Are you well, my lady?” Lyrna asked her.

“Forgive me, Highness,” she replied in a whisper. Next to her, Arendil reached out to clasp her hand, face drawn in worry.

“Perhaps, Highness,” Banders said in a somewhat hard tone, “talk of the Fief Lord can wait until after dinner. Such a subject has a tendency to turn the stomach.”

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, save for Davoka’s queries about the food placed in front of her. “Jellee?” she said, prodding the quivering castle-shaped dessert with a spoon. “Looks like snot.”

“I’m sure, my lord,” Lyrna said, “you require no lecture on the Realm’s recent troubles.”

They were in the main hall, alone save for a pair of wolfhounds, both of whom seemed to have taken a liking to her, laying their heads on her knees as she sat beside the great marble fireplace. Banders stood by the mantel, his expression still guarded but she could see the anger in him. “No, Highness,” he replied. “I surely do not.”

One of the wolfhounds gave a loud huff and she ruffled the fur behind his ears. “With the attempt on Tower Lord Al Bera’s life there may be more discord ahead,” she said. “Renfael has been largely free of the riot and lawlessness seen in the wider Realm. I assume you agree it would be best if it remain so.”

“I seek no discord. Only to preserve what is mine.”

“By traducing the reputation of your Fief Lord?”

“His reputation was sullied beyond redemption years ago, even before the war. I speak the honest truth, and only when asked.”

“And how often are you asked?”

Banders picked up a poker and prodded at the coals in the fire with quick, hard jabs. “There are many who find the thought of being ruled by that man a stain on their honour. If a knight comes to me for honest counsel, should I turn him away?”

“You should seek to preserve the King’s peace. Your standing in this fief, and the Realm, is very high. No other knight enjoys such regard. But high standing brings responsibility, asked for or no.”

He looked down, reminding her once again of Ulice and her obvious parentage, but not her son with his long dark curls. Only to preserve what is mine . . .

“Why have you not acknowledged your daughter?” she asked. “Or your grandson?”

Banders straightened, keeping his gaze averted. “I . . . do not grasp your meaning, Highness.”

“You have no wife, no other children. Your daughter, born outside the bounds of marriage or no, is still your blood. And clearly you cherish her greatly. Yet you withhold your name.”

He rose from the fire and turned away, hands clasped behind his back. “These are private matters . . .”

“My lord, I have travelled too many miles and seen too much to suffer the burden of petty courtesies. Please answer my question.”

He gave a heavy sigh and turned back, meeting her gaze, his face more sorrowful than angry. “Ulice’s mother was . . . of mean station, a miller’s daughter. I knew her from childhood, my father was always too wrapped up in his gaming and his whores to offer more than the laxest discipline. So I was free to associate with whomever I wished, and do as I pleased. And as I grew to manhood it pleased me greatly to make Karla my wife. But, for all his loose ways and disregard for propriety, my father would have none of it. That the daughter of the mill should bear the next heir to his lands and titles, those he hadn’t pissed away on cards or women that is. Unthinkable. When he died I hoped for a more sympathetic reply from Theros, but the old Fief Lord believed in the sanctity of knightly blood with all the vehemence others afford to the Faith. So, I gave up my entreaties and Karla and I lived together in this house as man and wife, though never formally joined. She was taken from me when Ulice was born, I have never sought another.”

“Your grandson?” Lyrna asked. “Ulice seems young to be a widow.”

Banders’s expression hardened once again. “Is it Your Highness’s habit to ask questions to which you already know the answer?”

Dark hair, dark blue eyes . . . I will of course, make provision for any dependents. “Lord Darnel.”

“Ulice was young,” Banders went on. “Barely fifteen, brought to join me at the Fief Lord’s holdfast. Darnel and I were never friends, he saw his father’s regard for me and hated it, for Theros had never shown him more than disappointed scorn. His pursuit of my daughter was revenge, though she didn’t see it as such, head full of the girlish notion that all knights are heroes. So when the handsome son of the Fief Lord professed love to her, why would she not believe him? He cast her aside of course, when she told him she was with child, laughed at her, and at me when I brought the matter to Theros. He beat the boy bloody, as was his wont, right there in the Lord’s chamber in front of all the ladies and retainers. Beat him until it seemed he’d killed him. Sadly, he hadn’t. I left the lord’s service the next day, took my daughter home and raised my grandson. I sought some recompense at the Summertide Fair a few years later, I believe you were there that day. I’d have had it too if one of his retainers hadn’t thumped me from behind with a mace.”

“Darnel has never married,” Lyrna recalled.

“And fathered no other children. None that are known in any case.”

“So if you were to acknowledge his mother, Arendil becomes of noble birth. A noble son with the Fief Lord’s blood. A claimant to the Lord’s Chair.”

“Darnel came here, shortly after I returned from the war, demanding his son by right. I told him he had no son. His retinue was only twenty strong, all callow youth. His old retainers had died to a man at Marbellis. I had over fifty knights at hand, all veterans of the desert. It pains me greatly that I didn’t decide to settle the matter then and there.”

“He hasn’t abandoned his claim then?”

Banders shook his head. “He wants his heir within his own grasp, either to be moulded into another monster or discarded as he sees fit. But if I give Arendil my name, it’s as good as an open claim to the Lord’s Chair. Renfael will go to war.”

“Then I thank you for your restraint.”

“It will not be I who sunders this fief, Highness. But, should it happen, with the King’s help, I can at least heal it. Our Fief Lord can only inflict wounds, not heal them.”

She was tempted to caution his tongue, but she had drawn the truth from him with impolite insistence after all. “There can be no war in this fief,” she said. “Not at any cost. You understand?”

He looked back at the fire and gave a tense nod.

“I ask for patience, my lord, and forbearance of difficult duty. Tomorrow Arendil will accompany me to Varinshold where I will counsel the King to offer him royal patronage. He will receive education and undertake service to the Crown, far beyond the reach of his father. His mother is free to accompany him if she wishes, I shall certainly be glad of pleasant company at the palace.”

“This estate is their whole world,” Banders said, voice soft. “Having seen more of the world beyond it than I would ever have wished, I dreamt that I might spare them the sight of it.”

Lyrna patted the wolfhounds a final time and rose from the chair, drawing a whine of protest from the larger of the two. “The price of noble blood is that we do not choose our paths in life, just the manner of walking them. I shall retire, my lord. You will wish to speak to your family.”

She had expected tears from Ulice but her gratitude was a surprise. “Wisdom and compassion,” she said the next morning, fighting a fresh bout of sobs as they said farewell on the gravel pathway before House Banders. “May the Departed preserve you always, Highness.”

Lyrna reached out to grasp her arm as Ulice began to bow. “Enough of that, my lady. I do wish you would come with us.”

“Fath-the baron needs me.” Ulice wiped her eyes with both hands, forcing a smile. “I can’t leave him here all alone. And a mother should know when to send her son forth, don’t you think?”

Lyrna squeezed her arm. “I do indeed.”

“May I crave a promise, Highness?” Ulice went on before Lyrna could move to mount Surefoot. “You have already done more than I could ever . . .”

“Just ask,” Lyrna said, then smiled as the woman blanched at her tone. “Please.”

Ulice came closer, speaking in a whisper. “Never let the Fief Lord take him. Hide him, send him far across the sea, but do not ever let him fall into his father’s hands.” The woman’s apparent timidity was gone now, her face a mask of maternal fury.

Lyrna clasped her hands and pressed a kiss to her cheek, whispering close to her ear. “I’ll see the raping bastard dead before he gets within a mile of your son. You have my word.”

Ulice stifled a gasp of relief and stepped back, extending a hand to Arendil who stood scowling next to his grandfather. “Come, bid your mother farewell.”

His mother may have been overflowing with gratitude, but Arendil was a picture of sullen, adolescent resentment. “Does it have to be now?” he said in a dull voice. “Why not in the winter, or next year?”

“Arendil!” his mother snapped, extending her hand again.

The boy’s scowl deepened and he seemed about to speak again when his grandfather’s knee prodded him forward. “Don’t insult Her Highness with tardiness, boy.”

Davoka trotted her pony closer, leading a horse by the reins, the fine grey mare the regiment’s Lord Marshal had offered Lyrna at the pass. “Here,” she said, tossing the reins to Arendil. The boy looked down at them, his lips curling. “Got my own horse,” he said.

“Perhaps it is a little too big for him,” Lyrna said to Davoka. “Do we have something more suited to a child?”

“I can ride it!” Arendil retorted, putting a foot into the stirrup and hauling himself into the saddle with practised ease. “Just not mine, is all.”

Ulice went to his side, clasping his hand and pressing a kiss to it. After a moment Banders came forward and gently pulled her away. Lyrna saw the flush of Arendil’s cheeks and turned away. “Baron! My lady!” she said, raising her voice to ensure the surrounding cavalry could hear. “My thanks for your hospitality. Rest assured your orphaned ward will receive the finest education at the King’s court.”

Banders put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and pulled her close as Lyrna turned Surefoot and led the regiment from the estate.

They made good time and were encamped on the northern fringes of the Urlish three days later, Lyrna and Davoka engaging in the now-nightly ritual of knife throwing. The Lonak woman had obtained an additional brace of knives, presumably from some unsuspecting brother at the pass, which enabled Arendil to join in, though his lack of skill was obvious.

“Boy hasn’t been taught to fight,” Davoka observed as Arendil’s latest throw went wide of the cleaved log they were using as a target.

“I have!” Arendil replied. “I can ride and use a lance and a sword. Grandfather taught me. Every day since I was eight. I even have my own armour, though I wasn’t allowed to take it.”

“Armour,” Davoka scoffed, sending a knife close to the centre of the log. “The steel-bellies were always easy to kill, just had to wait for them to camp. Only dangerous when they had something to charge at.”

“You can choose some armour when we get to the palace,” Lyrna assured Arendil, her own throw smacking into the upper edge of the log. “We have endless corridors full of it, rack upon rack of swords too. It always struck me as odd that the Realm Guard cost so much to arm when we had so many swords going to waste as ornaments.”

“Grandfather has lots of swords too, spears as well. He brought them back from the desert war.”

“Does he talk of it?” Lyrna asked him. “His time in the war.”

“Oh yes, though it makes him sad sometimes. The betrayal of Lord Al Sorna weighs on him. He says if the army had known of it, every man would have stayed and died to stop the Alpirans taking him, even the Cumbraelins.”

Lyrna decided she liked him then, the openness and disregard for titles were a quiet delight, though they would make him easy meat at court. And as for Davoka . . .

“It is not a good place,” she told the Lonak woman that night.

They sat by the campfire, Arendil sleeping soundly in his tent. Davoka sat on her wolf fur, long legs stretched out, cutting strips of dried beef into her mouth with a hunting knife. “Dangerous?” she asked in Realm Tongue. Lyrna had noted it was almost all she spoke now.

“In many ways, most unknown to you. The people there lie as if it were a virtue. Your closeness to me will arouse suspicion and envy in some. Others will seek to turn it to advantage. You must keep a guard on your tongue, and do not look for trust.”

Davoka grinned as she chewed. “If I have your trust, I need no other.”

“You may call me queen, sister. But I do not rule here; at the palace my counsel is tolerated, discarded or accepted as my brother sees fit. I fear my trust will not be enough to spare you the cruelties that await us there.”

“It’s your home, yet you speak as if you hate it.”

Hate it? Was it possible to hate a place she knew so completely? A place drained of mystery in childhood. But there had been so many faces over the years, so many lost to the noose or the wars. Lord Artis, power-greedy fool though he had been, she had always appreciated his pragmatism. Fat Lord Al Unsa and his clumsy dancing, as corrupt as a man could be yet he always made her laugh. And Linden, poor loving, idiot Linden . . . And Vaelin.

“Perhaps I do,” she admitted. “But there is nowhere else for me.”

“Cannot your brother rule without your counsel?”

“He certainly tries to, though I’m loath to abandon him even so. Perhaps one day, when the Realm is calmer, then I’ll find another home.”

Davoka grinned. “Plenty of space at the Mountain.”

Lyrna laughed. “I doubt the Mahlessa would welcome my presence.” But there is always the Northern Reaches . . .

“This forest is very old,” Davoka said, eyeing the dense woodland fringing the road with evident unease. Lyrna had noted her dislike of forest before, the constricting trees were a stark contrast to the tundra and mountains she knew so well. “I can smell the age of it.”

“The Urlish is the largest expanse of forest in the Realm,” Lyrna replied. “Preserved by the King’s Word and dwarfed only by the Great Northern Forest, at least on this continent.”

Davoka frowned at her. “Continent?”

“The landmass across which we travel.”

“There are others?”

Lyrna was about to laugh then saw the honest curiosity in Davoka’s eyes. She knows so much, and yet so little. “Four that are known to our maps,” she said. “All much larger than this one. Probably more besides, but no Realm subject has yet journeyed so far and returned.”

“Not so,” Arendil put in. “Kerlis the Faithless. It’s said he travelled around the world twice, and currently makes his third such journey.”

“Just a story,” Lyrna said. “A myth.”

“It can’t be,” the boy insisted. “Uncle Vanden swears he met him once, near thirty years ago.”

“And who is Uncle Vanden?”

“Grandfather’s cousin, a great and mighty knight in his time. I call him Uncle because he acts as such. He’s very old.”

“Old enough to meet the man who never dies, eh?”

Arendil’s scowl returned. “It’s true. Uncle wouldn’t lie. It happened when he was in service to the Warden of the North Shore. He was wounded in a battle with some smugglers and became separated from his men in the craggy rocks that cover the coast near the mountains. He says he stumbled about for hours, fearing he would bleed his life away, then he found Kerlis sheltering amidst the rocks with some strange people. Uncle was near death by then but there was a little boy amongst them with the Dark, a touch that could heal.”

Lyrna’s interest began to pique. “A healing touch?”

“I know it sounds fanciful, and Grandfather told me it was just the dreamy ramblings of an old man. But Uncle showed me the scar, a patch of mottled skin on his shoulder, all puckered and rough to the touch, but the centre of it smooth and unscarred in the shape of a hand, a child’s hand.”

Davoka gave a sullen grunt and spurred her pony to a canter, moving ahead until she was out of earshot. “Such talk upsets her,” Lyrna explained. “Finish the story.”

Arendil’s gaze was guarded, as if he feared she had some mockery in store, but he continued after a moment’s hesitation. “Although the boy had closed his wound, Uncle sickened with fever. Kerlis and the others saved him from the rising tide, taking him to shore and making a fire. Kerlis sat with him that night as he shivered and waited for death, and it was from his own lips that Uncle heard the tale. How he had been cursed by the Departed, though not, as the legend says, for simple Faithlessness, but for refusing a place in the Beyond, refusing to join with them. So they had closed him off from all doors to death, even the great emptiness that awaits the unfaithful. Twice he had circled the world, Uncle said. Twice he had returned to this land, come to help those he could, all the while searching.”

Lyrna was familiar with the story of Kerlis the Faithless but this was a new wrinkle to the tale. Kerlis was a cautionary figure, a lost soul endlessly wandering the earth, friendless and desperate for release. A passive victim, not a searcher. “Searching for what?” she asked.

“Uncle asked him the same thing. He said he thought Kerlis expected him to die, hence the freedom with which he spoke. He leaned close to my uncle and spoke in a whisper, ‘For what I was promised. One day there will be one amongst the gifted folk of this land who can kill me. I’ll know him when I see him. Until then I’ll strive to save as many as I can, for in years to come he may well be born to those I save. In a few years most birthed by this generation will be scattered or slaughtered, and I’ll take myself off again. My third circling of the world, my lord. I wonder what I’ll see.’ Uncle fell into a feverish slumber then, and when he awoke, somehow still living, Kerlis and the strange folk were gone.”

An old man’s dreamy ramblings indeed, Lyrna thought, more in hope than conviction. What she had witnessed in the Mahlessa’s chamber plagued her waking hours and her dreams. I searched so far for evidence, now I have it why does it seem such a burden?

The forest began to thin after two more days, eventually opening out into the grassy plain surrounding the walls of Varinshold. The eighth bell was tolling as they approached the north gate and the City Guard were lighting the great oil lanterns on either side of the entrance. Unlike Cardurin there was no bunting or cheering crowds to greet her entry to the city. It seemed her brother felt no need to mark her success and safe return with a public celebration. Probably saving the coin for another bridge, she thought. The usual gawkers and well-wishers lined the streets as the cavalrymen cleared a path for her, and there were a few calls of welcome or congratulation, but none of the adulation she had found in the north. In fact most onlookers seemed more interested in Davoka, some gaping and pointing at the sight of a Lonak riding through the streets of the capital, and a woman at that. Davoka bore the scrutiny with stoic calm, but Lyrna saw her hand tighten on her spear as some ribald comments arose from the spectators.

The crowd was a little thicker at the palace, the guards obliged to become more aggressive in ensuring her passage to the main gate where she was met by a balding, portly man with a wide smile. “Highness,” he greeted her, bowing low.

“Lord Al Densa,” she replied. Al Densa was master of the royal household and normally gave off an aura of perpetual calm, though today he seemed a little more lively.

“The King sends his apologies for failing to greet you in person, Highness,” the portly lord told her. “But today’s joyous event has commanded his attention.”

“Event?” Lyrna enquired, dismounting from Surefoot’s back and handing the reins to a groom.

“More a miracle in truth, Highness. Brother Frentis is returned to the Realm, safe and well, all the way across the ocean. The Departed be thanked for their care of him.”

Frentis? Of all the souls lost at Untesh, Frentis was the one that haunted her brother the most. “Joyous news indeed,” she said.

“I hate to trouble you with correspondence so soon,” Al Densa went on, producing a small scroll and handing it to her. “But the King seems keen to afford the fellow all cooperation.”

“Fellow?” Lyrna unrolled the scroll, revealing neat and well-scribed lines of Realm Tongue, although the letters were formed with some unusual flourishes.

“An Alpiran scholar, Highness. Come to write a history of some kind. The King thinks indulging him will offer a chance at healing the rift between our nations.”

Lyrna’s eyebrows rose at the sight of the signature on the scroll. “Verniers Alishe Someren. The Emperor’s personal historian. He’s here?”

“He was, Highness. The King acceded to his request to accompany the Realm Guard on their excursion to Cumbrael. However, as you see from his letter, he is very keen to secure an audience with you.”

She was familiar with Verniers’ work of course, though it suffered in translation from Alpiran. She had intended to work on her own version of his Cantos, if she ever got the time. A historian seeks the truth, at least a good one does. He comes to ask about my father and his mad war. “Of course I’ll see him,” she told Al Densa. “Please arrange the meeting as soon as he returns.”

Al Densa bowed. “I shall, Highness. For now, however, the King requests your attendance in the throne room. Brother Frentis and his companion are being conveyed there as we speak.”

“Companion?”

“A Volarian woman. It seems they were slaves together. The details are vague as yet, but clearly we can look forward to a tale of great adventure.”

“Clearly.” Lyrna beckoned Davoka and Arendil closer. “The Lady Davoka, Ambassadress of the Lonak Dominion, and Squire Arendil of House Banders, soon to be made ward of the King. They require suitable lodgings.”

“Of course, Highness.”

“For now I’ll take them to my rooms. Tell the King to expect me shortly.”

“Brother Frentis!” Arendil enthused as Lyrna led them along the many corridors to her suite in the east wing. “He’s almost as great a hero as Lord Al Sorna. Will I get to meet him?”

“I expect so,” Lyrna replied. “And when you meet the King do try to remember to call him ‘Highness.’ Such niceties are expected of palace guests.”

Her rooms were as she remembered, every furnishing and ornament just as they had been left. Her many books sat on their long shelves in the order she had decreed, the leather bindings dusted and shining but otherwise untouched. The desk where she spent so many hours held the full ink bottle and freshly cut quills she required be placed there every morning. And her bed, her wonderful bed. So soft, so warm . . . so very big. It was strange, everything else in the room seemed to have shrunk, but the bed had somehow contrived to grow.

Who lives here? she wondered, going to the desk and placing The Wisdoms of Reltak next to the stack of parchment. Which lonely old woman lives here and spends her days in endless scribbling?

She permitted her maids some fussing before ordering a suitable gown laid out and food brought for her guests. “I don’t know how long this will take,” she told Davoka when she had exchanged her riding gown for a blue silk dress with a gold-embroidered bodice. She stood in front of the mirror as one of the maids pushed her coronet into the remolded mass of her hair. “Best if you wait here with the boy. I’ll arrange a time for you to meet the King on the morrow.” She turned as Davoka failed to answer, finding the Lonak woman staring at her, a faint frown on her brow. “What is it?”

“You are . . . different,” Davoka said softly, eyes tracking over Lyrna’s form.

“Just trappings, sister,” she replied in Lonak. “A disguise in fact.” Save for this, she thought, fingering the throwing knife hanging from the chain about her neck. She had taken to wearing it openly since leaving the pass but decided it was probably best to keep it hidden once again, so took it off to hide behind the laces in her bodice. Never be without it.

“Princess Lyrna Al Nieren!” The page at the door announced her entry with a booming voice, thumping a staff onto the marble floor of the throne room three times. Lords only got one thump of the staff, Aspects two, she and the queen three. It was one of the rituals her father had instigated on assuming the throne. She had once asked him the significance of the thumping staff and received only a wry smile in response. All ritual is empty, Reltak had written. The more of the long-dead Lonakhim scholar she read, the more she appreciated his insight.

“Sister!” Malcius came to greet her, his embrace warm and close. “Your adventures had me greatly worried,” he whispered into her ear.

“Not so much as I. We have much to discuss, brother.”

“All in good time.” He stepped back and extended his hand to the two figures standing in the centre of the room, a young man and woman, dressed in mean clothing, but also both handsome of face and athletic of build. The man was well muscled with a stern visage, his features possessed of a hungry leanness. The woman was no less striking, lithe like a dancer and darkly beautiful. She seemed somewhat overawed by her surroundings, keeping close to the man’s side and casting wary glances at the assembled lords and guards.

“You are in time to join me in a joyous occasion,” Malcius said, moving towards the young man. “Brother Frentis.” He shook his head in wonder. “How you gladden my heart!”

Lyrna moved to her usual seat on the left of the throne, pausing to press a kiss to the queen’s cheek on the way and exchange hushed greetings with her niece and nephew. “Did you bring me a gift, auntie?” little Dirna asked.

“I did.” She tweaked her niece’s nose, drawing a giggle. “A Lonak pony for you and a new playmate for your brother. We’ll all go riding tomorrow.”

“I come . . .” Brother Frentis was saying in a halting voice as she took her seat. “I come, Highness. To beg . . . forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?” the King replied with a laugh. “Whatever for?”

“Untesh, Highness. I couldn’t hold the wall . . . My men . . . My failure saw the city fall.”

“The city was always going to fall, brother. Do not seek forgiveness for an imagined failing.”

Lyrna noticed Lord Al Telnar, onetime Minister of Royal Works, standing at the far side of the room. His expression, normally one of smug self-satisfaction or obsequious solicitation, was oddly tense as he offered her a bow. She had heard from a maid that he had been the one to recognise Frentis at the docks that very day, a perfect opportunity to curry lost royal favour. So where is his triumph? she wondered. Or his customary leer? The man had been another unwelcome suitor over the years, one she dismissed with almost as much alacrity as she had dismissed Darnel, but like the Fief Lord it hadn’t dimmed his ardour.

“For all the long years of slavery and torment,” Brother Frentis was saying, “it has been my one ambition to stand before you and crave your pardon.”

“Then it grieves me to disappoint you,” Malcius replied, moving forward with his arms wide, enfolding Frentis in a warm embrace. “For no pardon is required.” Malcius drew back a little, his hands on the brother’s shoulders. “Now, tell me of how you came to be here, and in company with such a lovely associate.”

Frentis smiled a little, head downcast, nodded, and reached up to clasp the King’s head between both hands, jerking it up and to the side, breaking his neck with a loud crack.

The knife was in Lyrna’s hand as she rose to her feet. She had no memory of having drawn it from her bodice. The screams began as the shocked stillness turned to confusion and rage, as the queen shrieked and the lithe woman dodged a guard’s pole-axe and drove a punch into his throat. Lyrna’s knife flew from her hand and buried itself in Frentis’s side. He convulsed instantly, back arching, a scream every bit as terrible as Kiral’s erupting from his throat, collapsing onto the marble floor, jerking as the agony wracked him.

The Volarian woman turned from the dead guard at her feet, gaping in shock at the sight of Frentis’s writhing form, his jerks ending abruptly, limbs suddenly slack. A single Volarian word issued from her lips in a whisper: “Beloved?”

“Kill her!” cried the queen in terror and grief. “Kill them both!”

Guards charged from all sides of the room, pole-axes levelled. The woman paid them no heed, her gaze fixing on Lyrna, face rendered ugly with malice and revenge. She extended both arms as the guards closed, and flame erupted from her hands.

Lyrna staggered back in shock, reeling from the heat as the woman whirled, her flames engulfing guards and lords as they swept the room. Lyrna saw little Dirna bathed in fire, her mother next, then little Janus, their bodies charred and blackened in seconds. Lyrna would have screamed but for the choking stench of smoke and burning flesh, making her crawl and rasp on the floor.

“You took him from me!” the woman screamed at Lyrna, advancing towards her on unsteady legs, blood flowing from her eyes in thick red tears. “You took my beloved! You festering cunt!”

A figure came staggering out of the swirling smoke as the woman raised her hands towards Lyrna, reaching out to restrain her. Al Telnar! Lyrna realised in shock.

The lord shouted at the woman as he grappled with her, his words lost amidst the roaring flame. The woman bared her teeth in a feral snarl and drove her hand open-palmed into the centre of his face. Al Telnar staggered back, sinking to his knees, his nose driven back into his skull, then collapsed lifeless to the floor.

Lyrna scrabbled back as the woman lurched closer, arm raised, flames erupting . . . and she burned.