A
fter Mörgain left, no one spoke for some while. Croy grew uneasy, standing against the wall with his hand on his sword hilt. The king, his liege, was clearly distressed—Ulfram sat in his chair, chin in hand, deep in thought.
“It’s far worse than I thought,” the king said at last. “I thought they would give us a chance to pay tribute in exchange for peace.” He shook his head. “Croy—Sir Croy. You were there. You saw the mountain come down. How wide is this pass? How many men can march abreast through it?”
Croy’s brow furrowed as he considered that. “When the mountain fell, it wreaked terrible damage on the surrounding land. The pass is perhaps a quarter of a mile across.”
“That big? That big!” Ulfram got up and ran to the door. He waved outside and Croy heard footsteps in the hall. “My scouts told me it was passable, but they forgot to mention it was wide enough to march an entire army through. Incompetence everywhere! A hole that big in my kingdom. The barbarians will flood through. There’ll be no stopping them.”
“Your majesty,” Sir Hew said, “I suspect you knew this was coming.”
The king looked up at his Captain of the Guard. “I knew they were massing the clans just east of the mountains, yes.”
“Already you’ve begun the process of conscription. We’ll have an army ready before they arrive,” Hew went on.
“An untrained rabble,” Ulfram told him. He waved one hand in frustration. “And only a few real knights to lead them.”
“We could send to the Northern Kingdoms, to hire more soldiers.” The kingdoms of Skilfing, Ryving, Maelfing, and Anfald were constantly at war with each other, and in times of peace they hired their soldiers out as mercenaries.
“Already done,” the king said. “Skilfing has promised to come to our aid as soon as they’re finished making their own war on Maelfing. They won’t arrive for many weeks, though—and the barbarians are only days away.”
“What of the Old Empire?” Croy asked.
The king shook his head. The first settlers of Skrae had been exiles from the continent across the southern sea, a land ruled for thousands of years by a grand imperial court. “I sent an envoy as soon as I heard about the new pass, of course,” Ulfram said, “but the Emperor there has no love for us, not even after all this time. And I wouldn’t trust him if he did send us troops. They’d probably beat the barbarians, then stick around to conquer us as well. No, we’ll have to rely on the army we have. But we’ve had too much peace, for too long! Barely any man in Skrae remembers how to lift a sword. We’re fat and soft. The barbarians—if they’re anything like her—will run roughshod over us.”
One by one the king’s councilors filed in from the hall. The exchequer, the seneschal, the chancellor, the Duke of Greenmarsh, the archpriest of the Lady, many more Croy had never met. The Baron of Easthull nodded in a friendly way to Croy, but was quickly drawn into conversation with a man who wore the golden chain of the Keeper of the Royal Seals. These were the most powerful men in Skrae—and unlike their king, they all looked terrified.
A table was brought in and maps unfurled across its surface. Croy was asked a thousand questions, very few of which he could answer, but he did his best. Cythera had a few more answers, but she lacked any military training and couldn’t speak to strategy. Yet the need for information seemed endless. Even Malden was interrogated about what he’d seen of the land near Cloudblade’s ruin.
Everyone crowded around the maps, working out where the invasion would come from. “The forest—here—will slow them down a bit, but we can expect at most ten days’ grace before they reach the river Strow,” Sir Hew said.
“If we could only hold them off until winter,” the king said, wringing his hands. “Just a few months. No army can march properly through a bank of snow. They’d have to either make camp where we could harry them, or, more likely, withdraw into the mountains and wait for spring. By then we could fortify the pass and seal them back where they belong.”
“There might be a way to slow them, at least,” Croy suggested. “Here,” he said, pointing to the map, quite near where the new pass lay, “there is an old fort. It’s where we met Herward. It’s half in ruins, but the walls still stand. My liege, give me five hundred men, and I’ll hold it for a month, though it cost me my life.”
The king stared at the map. Then he took a step back from the table and shook his head. “No,” he told Croy.
“I beg you, majesty! Allow me this chance to prove my honor.”
“I said no, Sir Croy. Your five hundred would be overrun, eventually. Every man of them slain, and still you wouldn’t buy us enough time. I can’t sacrifice that many on a noble gesture. No, we will make our defense here, at Helstrow.”
Sir Hew cleared his throat, but the king shot him a piercing glance. “I have spoken,” he announced.
Silence fell across the room.
“When word of this gets out, everyone in the outer bailey will try to flee. I can’t allow that. Seal the gates of the outer bailey—all of them. No man will leave Helstrow, not until I bid it,” Ulfram declared. “Redouble our efforts to conscript the population. I want every soul within these walls dedicated to preparing for the attack. As for you three Ancient Blades—go now, and make yourselves useful. Train as many of the rabble as you can. My councilors and I have a great deal of work to do, and you’re wasting our time.”
Croy’s cheeks burned. His heart raced in his chest. He bowed deep and said, “My liege.” Then he nodded at Cythera and Malden and hurried them out of the chamber.
It was not until they were beyond the gates of the palace that any of them spoke again. It was Cythera who spoke first. “I can’t believe he just let Balint go like that—after all she did!”
“We cannot gainsay him,” Croy told her. “He is the Lady’s appointed sovereign, and his word is law.”
“He’s a man. And any man can be a fool,” Malden insisted.
Croy’s blood surged to hear the slander, but he knew better than to take Malden’s words too seriously. The thief didn’t understand what he was talking about. “He’s a king, and that’s all that matters. It is his right to do as he sees fit, for all our sakes.”
“Not mine. I know nothing of war,” Malden admitted, “but he’s making a mistake, isn’t he? Sir Hew seemed to think your strategy could have worked. It could have kept the barbarians bottled up. Instead he’s going to just let them march up to his gate so he can have a nice chat with
their
king. Or whatever it is they have instead of a king. He’s going to talk to them, when all they want is to destroy us.”
Croy’s honor wouldn’t allow him to agree. But he knew enough of military history to say, “If the barbarians come through the pass unhindered, they’ll have time before the first snow falls to establish a strong foothold inside Skrae’s borders. Once they’re here, it’ll be a hard thing to drive them out again.”
The thief placed a hand on Croy’s shoulder. Croy could feel Malden’s fingers shaking. “I—I’m not good enough with this sword to fight in battle,” he said. “I can’t stay here. I can’t stand beside you.”
Croy closed his eyes. Cowardly words, but truthful ones. “No, Malden, you can’t. Which is why you’re leaving Helstrow tonight—and you’re taking Cythera with you.”
A
fter darkness fell, Malden and Croy headed back into the outer bailey. The air was crisp with autumn’s chill, but Helstrow’s streets were full of people heading this way and that, as if they didn’t know where to go but didn’t dare go to their homes. The kingsmen were out in force, hauling away anyone they could find who could be legally conscripted. Even the slightest offense was enough to get a man arrested that night. Public drunkenness, failure to keep a pig off the street—things that were commonplaces in peacetime had become hanging offenses, it seemed. Nor were the women of Helstrow left unaccosted. They were herded toward churches and public houses, where they would be put to work making bandages and bowstrings.
Malden still wore his old green cloak, but Croy had put on a tabard with the colors of the king, green and gold, and the people they passed gave them a wide berth. The swords on their hips probably made room for them as well.
The two of them passed a bloody-handed preacher standing on the lip of a well, shouting for all who would hear it the old religion of the Bloodgod—heresy in a fortress-town dedicated to the Lady. More than a few young men had stopped to listen, perhaps thinking Sadu could save them from the coming barbarians. When the crowd saw Croy’s colors, though, they ran off into the night.
“They’d do better putting their faith in the king,” Croy said through clenched teeth. He found the piglet the holy man had sacrificed hidden in the well’s bucket. He tossed it angrily into the street.
“They’re terrified,” Malden told him. He could sympathize. “They’ll turn to anything that offers some hope.” He looked ahead into the dark street, lit only by the moon. “Is it much farther now?”
“The conscripts you want are being held in a churchyard by the outer wall,” Croy told him. “It’s only a few streets from here. Once you find these men—”
“It’s better if you don’t know what I’ll do after that,” Malden told him. “We’ll part ways as soon as they’re freed.”
Croy nodded. “Malden,” he said, “this may be the last time I have a chance to talk to you about . . . something that has been troubling me.”
Malden tensed, wondering what the knight was talking about. Was he going to change his mind now, and demand that he stay and help with the defense of Helstrow?
“There is no time for Cythera and I to be wed before you leave,” Croy went on, looking away from Malden’s face. “I have her promise, but . . . Malden. I’ve never doubted your friendship. Yet I saw something, under Cloudblade. Something I cannot explain.”
Malden’s heart stopped beating for a moment. “You saw her kiss me.”
Croy couldn’t seem to speak.
This might be the moment, Malden thought, when he tells me he’s going to have to kill me. He considered which way he would run.
But Croy lived by a code of honor. And that meant he had to give a man a chance to defend himself. “Why did she do it?” he asked.
The thief licked his lips. What he said next would have to be very carefully worded. Cythera had said she would tell Croy everything when they returned to Ness. Implicit in that was that he shouldn’t tell Croy himself. He couldn’t tell Croy that he and Cythera loved each other. That the betrothal between the knight and Cythera was already broken.
There was good reason for that silence. Still, Malden burned to have it all out in the open. It would make life so much simpler. In all likelihood, it would also make
his
life much shorter. Yet he found he couldn’t quite lie. “Allow me to explain. At that moment—the moment of that kiss—I was moments from certain death. The assassin, Prestwicke, was going to kill me. I was a condemned man and I had no hope of survival. I begged her for that kiss, as the last request of a dying man. In such a case, what woman could refuse?”
Croy’s eyes were wide and his face had turned bright red. He was embarrassed, Malden realized, to even have to ask. If another man had caught him kissing his betrothed, a lesser man than Croy, he doubted that explanation would have sufficed. Yet Malden saw other emotions in Croy’s face. Gratitude. Relief. Croy had wanted so badly for there to be a simple, innocent explanation that the knight probably would have accepted anything he said. Anything other than the full truth.
“Surely you don’t doubt her constancy,” Malden insisted. “Her honor—”
“Her honor is my honor, and I would die to defend it. And you’re right, she could not refuse you in a moment like that. She is such a compassionate woman. You see why I love her? Do you understand the strength of my feelings?”
“I think I do,” Malden said softly.
“But that very quality I love makes her vulnerable. Men can be schemers. They can take advantage of woman’s gentler nature, and women aren’t always wise enough to resist their charms.”
Not for the first time Malden remembered that Croy had never spent much time around women. In comparison, Malden, who had been raised by harlots, thought he might know the female mind a little better. He also knew just how well women could resist men’s charms—when they chose to. He decided not to share this knowledge just then.
“Someone else, someone with a less noble heart than yours, Malden, might have taken advantage of that situation. They might have asked for more than a kiss. If she were in a situation where she had to compromise herself, she might question the promise she made to me.”
“Put these thoughts from your mind! Croy, you have enough to worry about!”
Croy shook his head. “I need to ask your aid, Malden, and please, don’t refuse this. I need you to watch her. Make sure she stays safe. And . . . and pure. I—” Croy let out a little gasp. His fists were clenched before him. “I would die, my soul would shrivel, if I ever learned she did not love me any longer. It would pain me more than arrows through my vitals, Malden!”
“I swear this, Croy,” he said. “No new lover will come near her. I won’t so much as let her be alone with any man but me.”
There were tears in Croy’s eyes when he grasped Malden in a crushing embrace. “You are my friend, after all. I doubted it sometimes—but you are my true friend.”
“Put all your trust in me,” Malden told him. And for the first time in his life, he felt the pangs of conscience for deceiving someone. But he knew he would feel pangs of another sort—the sort one feels with two feet of steel shoved through one’s belly—should Croy ever learn the truth.