Wolfblade (19 page)

“Ensuring we have no way out of this,” Laran suggested sourly.

“If we go down this path, Laran, there’s no point in wishing for an escape route. There will be none.”

Laran turned on his uncle angrily. “
We?
What do you mean,
we
? Aren’t you supposed to stay out of this sort of thing? What happened to the famous neutrality of the Sorcerers’ Collective?”

“I
am
looking after the Collective’s interests,” Kagan announced. He clutched at his diamond-shaped pendant, looking rather offended by his nephew’s accusation.

“Since when did the Collective’s interests involve starting a war with Fardohnya? Or a civil war in Hythria?”

“Since I realised that it doesn’t matter what I do, Laran, that Fardohnyan tyrant intends to rid Fardohnya of every member of the Collective he can get his hands on. When Hablet assumed the throne there was a bloodbath in Talabar. I don’t fancy helping his cause along. Or giving him a chance to wreak the same havoc in Hythria.”

“Then shouldn’t you be doing something about Hablet? Why pin all your hopes on me?”

“Because we trust you, Laran,” his mother said simply. “Glenadal trusts you.”

Laran shook his head. “That’s not enough.”

“It will have to be,” Kagan said flatly.

Laran stared at his mother in surprise. “I can’t believe you, of all people, have agreed to this. All those stories you told me when I was a boy, all those dreadful anecdotes about how demeaning and degrading it is to be the daughter of a noble house of Hythria, married off for her bloodline like a particularly valuable slave. What of them, mother? Are you so enamoured of the idea of being the grandmother of the next High Prince that you suddenly find your many and much publicised objections to arranged marriages inconvenient?”

“That is unfair, Laran.”

“I’m sure Marla Wolfblade will agree with you.”

“She won’t suffer the way I did,” Jeryma explained. “You’re a good man. I know you won’t hurt her.”

“Are you so sure of that?” he asked pointedly.

She met his gaze evenly, almost defiantly. “Yes, Laran. I am.”

“I’m twice her age.”

“Marla is sixteen, or so close it barely matters. You are thirty. That’s merely fourteen years. In a few years, your age difference will mean nothing to either of you.”

“What if she wants to marry someone else? And I don’t mean Hablet.”

“Marla Wolfblade is the High Prince’s sister. She will have been raised to understand this is not her choice.”

“Suppose
I
want to marry someone else?”

“Do you?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Well, as you obviously don’t have another candidate in mind,
I
don’t see the point in discussing it.”

“I will not have anything to do with your plans to overthrow the rightful High Prince of Hythria, mother.”

“Nobody is asking you to overthrow him, Laran. I’m as staunch a Royalist as ever there was and I’m offended you would think otherwise. All I’m asking of you—all Glenadal is asking of you—is that you ensure the next High Prince of Hythria is a Hythrun, not a Fardohnyan.”

“I could do that by joining the Patriots and backing Alija’s plan to have Barnardo overthrow Lernen.”

“That’s not funny, Laran.”

“Are you so certain I’m joking?” He shook his head, at a loss as to how he was going to get out of this. And wondering if he should try. Glenadal was right about one thing. This plan would ensure a suitable heir to the throne. And it would stop Alija and her cronies in their tracks. That was a more tempting reason than any other he could think of. But he still wasn’t convinced. Not completely. “The whole idea is madness. And without the backing of any other Warlord it will never work.”

Before his mother could respond, a sudden cry echoed through the palace. It was a tormented keening that tore through Laran’s soul.

“That’s Riika,” he said, on his feet and already halfway across the hall at a run as he spoke. Jeryma and Kagan were close on his heels as he ran towards Glenadal’s room, knowing with sick certainty that the only thing which could cause such a mournful cry was the passing of the Warlord of Sunrise Province.

H
ighcastle was aptly named, perched atop the ragged cliffs of the southernmost coastline of Hythria. From high on the battlements, Marla watched the pounding waves surge and crash against the base of the cliff, throwing up curtains of glittering spray. The high mountains in the southern reaches of Hythria had always fascinated her. The world seemed to lose its colour here. The pristine snow from last night’s fall had settled serenely over the black trees and the entire horizon was cast in a monochrome still life. Huge pines blanketing the mountainside stood tall and proud, their heavy boughs tipped in pure white. Even the overcast sky had taken on the same shade of colourless grey that the rest of the world had assumed.

Marla walked around the tower, hugging her fur cloak tight, lost in a morose fugue that had dogged her ever since Lernen had sent her away from Greenharbour after arranging for her to marry the Fardohnyan king. She barely spoke to anyone. Wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. Suicide suggested itself as an option occasionally, but she wasn’t quite ready for so drastic a step.
Perhaps I’ll do it on my wedding night
, she thought.
That would be dramatic. Not to mention tragic. And painful. And probably messy
. . .

With a mournful sigh, Marla ran a gloved hand over the ice-rimmed stonework and studied the icicles that stuck to her glove.

“Cold enough for you?”

She started at the sudden intrusion on her solitude. “What do you want, Fool?”

Her
court’esa
shivered and stamped over to the edge, standing on tiptoe to look down with a shudder. “Lirena sent me to find you. What are you doing up here, your highness? It’s freezing!”

“Just admiring the view,” she replied with a shrug.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yes.”

He smiled, squaring his twisted shoulders manfully. “Well, if you can stand it, so can I.”

Without being asked, the dwarf fell in beside her and walked with Marla as she finished her circuit of the tower. On the other side, the view stretched away into the distance over the white-capped black waves of the Bay of Mourning. A castle sat on the other arm of the bay, white and slim-spired, like a sketch of an enchanted kingdom. Its owners had built it to be as graceful and pretty as Highcastle was cumbersome and dull.

“I wonder what’s happening in Fardohnya this morning,” Elezaar asked, easily guessing the direction of her thoughts as she studied the view.

“You know, until now, I don’t think I ever realised how close to Fardohnya we are here.”

“It’s not that close really,” Elezaar said. “There’s quite a few miles of impassable mountains between us and them.”

“Couldn’t they sail across the bay?”

“I suppose they could, but it wouldn’t do them much good. There’s nowhere to land down there. Does that place have a name?”

“Tambay’s Seat they call it.”

“Ah,” the slave replied, as if the name held some meaning for him.

“Who is Tambay?”

Elezaar knitted his brows as he looked up at his mistress. “Not is. Was. He was only one of the three most famous figures in both Hythrun and Fardohnyan history. Don’t they teach you princesses anything?”

Marla shrugged. “They might have, but I probably wasn’t listening. I never put much store in lessons.”

Elezaar shook his head. “A woman who can’t read or write would hide in shame in my profession.”

“But noblewomen don’t need an education,” Marla pointed out petulantly. “Noblewomen are for looking decorative and making babies. I don’t know why the gods even bothered giving us a brain. I mean, it’s not as if we ever get to use it.”

“Ah, so that’s what’s eating you up.”

Marla turned her back on the view and leaned against the chilly wall, hugging her arms close to her body. “It’s not fair! Lernen sent me back here simply to shut me up. And to learn how to be a good wife to . . . that . . . that Fardohnyan brute! Well, it won’t work!”

“Hence the reason you have yet to call on my services. Or Corin’s. Your highness, may I offer you a small piece of advice?”

“Why not? I’m just as much a slave to my brother’s whims as you are.”

“Then learn from a slave. Open defiance is rarely profitable unless you can back it up with force. You have no force, therefore your defiance does nothing but alert others to your discontent.”

“I don’t care if Lernen learns of my discontent! I want him to know about it!”

“You might find your cause better served by working in the shadows rather than the light, my lady.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t we go down to a nice warm fire? Perhaps I can educate you over a cup of mulled wine.”

She stared at the slave suspiciously. His head was far too large for the body it rested on. “Why do you keep following me around, offering to help me?”

“Because I have no more desire to go to Fardohnya than you, your highness.”

She glared at the
court’esa
. “Well, if you want to do something useful, little man, find a way to prevent it.”

“You are a princess, your highness, and, in your own way, just as much a chattel as I am. What separates us is the price they demand for our services. I may not be able to stop your wedding, but, if you let me, I can show you how to play the game so that you gain some measure of control over your life. You have a great deal of power at your fingertips.”

“If I had any power, Fool, I wouldn’t have to marry Hablet.”

“You have power, your highness,” Elezaar corrected. “Your son will be the heir to the High Prince’s crown. Have you thought of that?”

Marla couldn’t believe she was having such a discussion with a slave. She ought to call for a guard. Have the Fool disciplined for talking out of turn. But there was a ring of truth in the voice of the hideously deformed
court’esa
. She found herself unable to deny it. “Don’t be ridiculous! Lernen’s son will be High Prince, not mine.”

“Your brother will never father a child, my lady,” Elezaar warned. “The only children to get close to him will be the ones he takes to his bed.”

“Don’t you dare repeat that heinous nonsense!”

“Why not?” he asked with a shrug. “It’s the truth. Every slave in Green-harbour can relate a story or two about your brother and the slaves he amuses himself with. Few of them have a happy ending.”

“It’s not true!”

“Are you so blind, your highness, to think that a man cannot be so base?” the dwarf asked. “Or is it because he’s your brother that you find the truth so hard to stomach?”

“You have a nerve, slave, to speak to me so.”

“I live to serve, your highness, and I can do you no better service than make you see the truth. The whole of Hythria knows your brother is concerned only with his own pleasure. He cares nothing for the lives he destroys in the process. And that includes your life.”

“Even if it’s true, I still don’t see how it makes me powerful.”

Elezaar smiled. “Then it will be my honour to instruct you, my lady. You have need of friends, I think.”

Marla shook her head, puzzled by the dwarf’s comment. “I have plenty of friends.”

“You have no friends, your highness,” Elezaar warned. “You have family who see you only as a tool in their political ambitions. Everyone else around you is either a slave or paid to be with you. Even Lirena, whom you trust implicitly, is the servant of your brother, not you. There is not a soul in your company you can rely on.” The Fool hesitated for a moment, then added carefully. “Except me.”

“Except you?” she scoffed, wounded by his words, the more so because she realised they were true. “Why should I rely on you?”

“Because you are the first master or mistress I have ever had who doesn’t treat me like a circus animal, your highness. I wish, with all my heart, to stay in your company. For that, I would do anything to ensure you are free to keep me around.”

“I haven’t done anything but ignore you, Fool.”

“When being the centre of attention means torment, my lady, being ignored can be a gift more valuable than freedom.”

“What about Corin?”

The dwarf hesitated before he answered. “Use Corin for his intended purpose, your highness. He’s very good at what he does. Make him teach you everything he knows. But don’t get attached to him.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t trust him?”

“I’m saying he was a gift, your highness, from the woman who belongs to the faction trying to engineer your brother’s downfall. It would pay to be cautious around him.”

“How do I know
you’re
not a spy?”

“You don’t.”

“Then I shouldn’t trust you either.”

The dwarf nodded approvingly. “That is the Fourth Rule of Gaining and Wielding Power, your highness. Trust no one.”

“The Fourth Rule?” Marla stamped her feet against the cold. “What are you babbling about? I swear you’ve more cheek than any slave I’ve ever met. I should have you whipped.”