Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (68 page)

The others rose as the duke entered, and Cole did likewise. Behind the lord of the castle trotted an elderly wolfhound, its pelt wiry and grey. The duke strode to his chair at the head of the table, and bade his guests to reseat themselves. “I apologise for my lateness,” he said gruffly, without further embellishment. He pulled a dirk from his hip and used it to cut himself a thick slice from the loaf. As he did so, the duke glanced up at Raven, but showed no surprise at her presence. “It is good to see you, my girl. How long has it been since you were last in our halls?”

“Five years, Your Grace, or thereabouts,” she replied.

The duke waved an impatient hand at the formality. “Duncan, please,” he said. “If such familiarities offend you, then ‘my lord’ will suffice. I haven’t forgotten what you did for my son. Foolish boy. Nevertheless, as long as I live you will never wear out your welcome here.”

“You are kind to say so, my lord.”

With the duke seated, servants began to bring out other dishes. A tureen of vegetable broth was set upon the table and a bowl placed in front of each of them. A roasted fowl was also laid down, along with a long platter containing a whole pike, which gravely regarded Cole with glazed eyes as it was placed beside him. For a time, they ate in near-silence. Cole sampled a little of each dish; the broth was delicious and warmed his insides, while the game was so tender its flesh almost melted upon his tongue. The pike did not agree with him, however, and, filled up as he was on the rest of the fare, he pushed aside what remained.

He felt a movement at his lap, and glanced down. The wolfhound had laid its head upon his knee, and stared up at him with imploring eyes. Cole tickled the dog behind its ears, then tipped a few scraps from his plate onto the floor. It immediately dropped and began to gulp down the leftovers. For some reason, watching the hound bolting down the scraps reminded him of Grume, and he chuckled.

“So, what brings you to our city?” asked the duke, who still picked fastidiously at his plate.

“We seek passage to Ehrenburg, my lord,” Raven replied. Like Cole, she had tried a little of each dish placed before them, though in far lesser quantities. “Sadly, our purses are a little light at present.”

“They have travelled all the way from Westcove,” Conall chipped in. “Through the mountains, no less.”

“Indeed?” The duke raised a grey, bushy eyebrow. “An unusual route. I won’t ask what takes you to the capital. Urgent, important business, I’ve no doubt. You haven’t changed a bit with the years, my dear.” He smiled thinly, and gestured towards a liveried servant waiting attentively nearby. “Arrange for two of our finest horses to be taken to the stable outside the southern gate,” he told the man. “Have them saddled and ready to leave, with as many provisions as they can carry.”

“My lord, I don’t know what to say,” Raven said, as the servant hurried away. She sounded stunned. “You have my thanks, but it isn’t necessary. We-”

“...Are eternally grateful, Your Grace,” Cole finished, glaring meaningfully at Raven. He did not intend to let a solution to their problems, which had arrived so unexpectedly, slip away. In just a few short days, they could be within sight of the walls of Ehrenburg.
The end of my journey approaches
, he thought.

“Think nothing of it, young man,” the duke replied graciously, with another fleeting smile. “I have lived long enough to know that when our Raven is engaged on a task she believes to be important, the wisest course is to assist her. She is not one to enter into something lightly.”

Cole recalled a certain gold locket, and a grieving man living in a cliff-top house. It felt like a lifetime ago. “I believe you are correct, Your Grace.”

“There is one matter I’d hope to discuss, my lord,” said Raven, as the duke took up his goblet. “When we met Conall in the city, he mentioned troubles of some kind.”

“I found them by that blasted pillar,” the younger man added, by way of explanation. “I nearly arrested them, before I recognised Raven.”

The duke sipped at his mead and frowned. “A few troublemakers,” he grunted dismissively. “Nothing more. A handful of shopkeepers and drunkards raising their voices in protest. It will pass.”

“With respect, father, but you are wrong,” Conall said. The duke directed a cool stare towards his son, but the young guard-captain stood firm in the face of it. “You sit up here in your keep, too far above the streets to understand what is taking place. Each night it becomes harder to maintain order. So far we have been able to contain it, but I fear that trouble is brewing.”

“It’s the crystal, isn’t it?” Raven asked. “Tell me what has been happening.”

“It was raised up by the Order a week or so past...” Conall began.

“Did anyone see them building it?” interrupted Cole.

The young officer frowned. “Now that you mention it, no. It was not there at sunset, but by the following morning it was standing just as you saw it today. We wondered, naturally, where it had come from. The elder told us they had laboured during the night, when all were asleep, and that it was merely a monument to the Order. In any case,” he continued, “it was little more than a curiosity at first, until the next night.”

“Let me guess, it shot green fire into the sky,” Cole ventured. “We saw it and others like it when we were crossing the mountains.”

“Yes, it was then that we realised it wasn’t just within our city that the Order had raised these stones.” Conall took another sip from his goblet. He seemed disquieted. “Half the people in the city were frightened by it. The other half... gathered by the stone, singing and chanting. The same has happened each night since. It’s unlike anything I have ever before seen.”

“I would not be surprised if the ones gathered by the stone all bore similar crystals around their necks,” said Raven. “So, there are tensions between the two groups, I take it?”

“Each night, it grows worse. The Order and its followers grow in numbers, while more and more of the other citizens congregate around them, shouting insults.” Conall shook his head sadly. “As yet, there has been no violence, thank the Divine, but you have only to walk the streets to know that what peace remains cannot hold forever.”

“My lord, you are no friend of the Order, just like others in the north,” pressed Raven. “Why did you not simply pull the stone down when it appeared?”

The duke grimaced. “That would be... problematic. I personally disagree with their creed, but the Order enjoys the emperor’s favour. To oppose one is to incur the wrath of the other. I could pull the stone down today, and in a week’s time I would have ten thousand Legion soldiers outside my gates claiming a breach of our treaty.”

“Not to mention that my brothers are by now likely within reach of the Bloody Prince’s sword-arm,” Conall added. “Their lives would be forfeit the moment that brute is told that the alliance has been broken.”

The duke raised a hand to silence his son. “It is not wise to say such things, even here.” He paused thoughtfully, before turning to Raven. “My dear, would you perform one last service for me, before you resume your journey?”

“Of course, my lord, I would be honoured,” she replied. “What is it you wish of me?”

“Much of what my son has said is correct,” the duke told her. He tapped a finger against his goblet. “But he is wrong about one thing. Even here, above the city, I feel it. My people are afraid, and their fear grows. We live in troubled times, and they look to me for direction. If they are dissatisfied with the path I choose, then I do not know what the future may hold for us.” He hesitated, still tapping an uneven rhythm upon the pewter. Despite his placid demeanour, it was clear he was disturbed by the current situation. “My son will be heading into the city soon, with his guardsmen. For the past few nights, they have kept watch over the stone and those that gather there. Go with him tonight. Observe for yourself what takes place. Then return and tell me whether you believe the stone must be brought down. I am most interested to hear your counsel on the matter.”

Raven was taken aback. “I am humbled that Your Grace has such faith in my judgement,” she said. “But it feels like too heavy a responsibility for one who is not of your people.”

The duke smiled without humour. “A wise ruler never underestimates the value of an impartial opinion. Your mind won’t be too clouded by politics or fear to see what is best for my people and my city. Your good judgement is more valuable to me than a pair of geldings and a saddlebag of supplies.”

Raven bowed her head. Cole thought that she still seemed uncertain, but nevertheless she replied, “As you wish, my lord. I will do as you ask.”

The main business concluded, they quickly finished up the rest of the supper, before leaving the hall with Conall. At the doorway, Cole turned to look back inside. As the door closed behind him, he saw the duke sitting alone at the table, staring thoughtfully into the distance, absently scratching the wolfhound behind its ears.

They followed Conall to the outer courtyard, where a score of guardsmen were already lining up in readiness. Soon, they were all marching back down the hill towards the city, Cole and Raven at their head alongside the duke’s youngest son. The soldiers’ steel boots drummed loudly on the cobblestones.

The sun had already dropped below the horizon by the time they crossed back over the bridge and reached the green crystal pillar. With practised skill, the guardsmen formed a wide ring around the stone.

“What now?” Cole asked, watching them take up positions.

“We wait,” Conall replied simply.

At his suggestion, Cole and Raven stood a short distance away. “If there is trouble, I would rather you not be at the heart of it,” Conall told them. “But whatever happens, you’ll be able to better observe what takes place.”

So it was that they found themselves standing near the riverbank, not far from the bridge they had already crossed twice that day. The rushing waters below reflected the colourful palette of the evening sky above. The river looked quite beautiful, and it seemed that a peace had descended over the city. Looking to the north, however, in amongst the streets and alleys opposite, Cole was reminded of the feelings of disquiet he’d had earlier. Beyond the guardsmen, men and women of various ages had begun to gather, silently watching them. The soldiers held their ground, but the tension in the air was palpable.

“If you go back and tell him to pull the stone down, do you think he’ll actually do it?” Cole murmured to Raven under his breath.

Raven shrugged. “If I had to guess, I would say that he already knows what he should do, but is concerned about the potential consequences. No doubt the memory of the choice faced by his ancestor weighs heavily upon him.” She paused, watching Conall stride around the stone, inspecting his troops. “If someone he trusts, who has no personal stake in the matter, recommends a certain course of action to him, I believe he would act upon it. In all the years I’ve known him, Duncan Maccallam has always done what he thought best for his people.”

“He would risk the lives of his sons, then?”

“It would probably not come to that. I only know Prince Adelmar by reputation, but they say he is probably the greatest general the Empire has ever known. I doubt that he would risk sparking a rebellion just because one northern city poked the Order in the eye, not with war already raging to the south. Besides,” she added, “they’re surrounded by hundreds of loyal men. I’m sure they’ll be safe whatever happens after tonight.” Despite her words, Cole detected an undercurrent of uncertainty in her tone.

For perhaps half an hour, they waited. By the time the stars had begun to twinkle in the night sky, over a hundred people were milling amongst the street and buildings on the far side of the ring of guardsmen. There was an air of expectancy, not dissimilar to what he had sensed on the mountain-top, among the Aevir. But where there had been excitement among the strange bird-people, the atmosphere in the square was markedly different. Looking around at the faces of the people, he read fear in their features, even anger in some. Conall obviously sensed it too. He patrolled again around the ring of guardsmen, cajoling and calming them as he deemed necessary.

Just then, a door opened nearby. It was a building Cole had noted absently earlier that day. He had taken it for a church of some kind; at one end it had a tall tower and along its length were windows of stained glass. From out of the open doorway, a line of people marched solemnly towards the stone. At their head were Brothers in brown robes, hoods pulled down low over their faces and the Order’s green star splashed across their breast. Behind them trailed a row of normal people. To look at them, it was almost impossible to distinguish them from those that gathered around the outskirts of the square. The only noticeable difference between them was that Cole could see a silver chain around the necks of each of those that followed the Brothers. But where hostility was etched upon the faces of their fellows, the latest arrivals appeared at peace. Cheerful even. If they had picked up on the tense atmosphere that hung over the square like a shroud, it was not immediately obvious.

When this procession reached the ring of guardsmen, the soldiers parted to grant them passage. As Cole watched, the civilians knelt down before the stone, while one of the Brothers began to deliver a sermon. He was too far away to hear the words, but the man’s voice was a sonorous drone. On the far side of the square, he began to see ripples of movement among the crowd. People wandered closer to the guardsmen, one at a time at first but soon approaching in clusters.