The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (18 page)

“Then why did she do it?” Sorrel asked.

“She must have had a very good reason, and a plan. I just don’t know what it is. Arbiter Willow told us that Fritillary is not at a
shrine, which makes sense. She’s out in the world somewhere. That way she can have her spies tell her what Fox and his lancers are doing. But she must have a way of keeping in touch somehow with the shrines. I suspect somewhere where there is a shrine which
hasn’t
disappeared. A place where she can live, and the shrine keeper can pass on news through the unseen guardians to all the shrines, and news can come back the other way, to her. How else would they be able to send her a message?”

“Where do you think it is?”

“Ustgrind. It’s a Way of the Flow shrine. How better to connect than through water? And it would be under the protection of Regala Mathilda.”

Ardhi, who had been listening in silence, his chin resting on the hand propped up by his elbow on the table, suddenly sat up straight. “The message you sent – how will she reply?”

“I told her to tell the shrine keeper at the main Twite shrine to attach an answer to the leg of any eagle that landed in their sacred oak. Twite is not far from Gromwell Holdfast.”

Ardhi grinned. “Good thinking.”

“But that doesn’t tell us what her larger plan is.” Saker looked across the table at Sorrel. “You said what we saw at the Hornbeam shrine was all wrong. Why?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but I’m a farmer’s daughter, and if I was trying to sustain a village of that size on land of that area, well, it wouldn’t look like that.”

“Go on.”

“They had supplies to start with. Mostly grain and flour and firewood. To supplement that, they took farm animals and started a vegetable garden.”

“Which all sounds very sensible to me.”

“Yes. But if it was me, I’d also try to reduce things which would be a drain on resources. Dogs and cats, for example. They eat a lot. True, they protect and they hunt, but when you’re confined to a tiny area like that, what would they be hunting? And there’s no need for protection – yet you have to feed them. I counted at least four cats and five dogs. Why have so many? Then there were two horses. Why? Nobody’s going anywhere. I suppose one might be handy to pull a
plough, but when I looked at the meadow – what was left of it – it had been overgrazed. There were three cows and some goats and pigs… Much of what must have been lush is now eaten bare. Shenat teaching says we must protect the land, not treat it like that! It all looked so… wrong.”

“You’re right,” Saker agreed, frowning. “Bad management.”

“What were the people
doing
?” Ardhi asked.

“Who?”

“The people there,” Ardhi said. “Some of those folk were doing what you’d expect – cooking, gardening, drawing water. But some were standing around in groups, looking at – well, that’s it. I don’t know. A couple of men were just staring at a barrel. Just staring at it!”

“I saw someone carrying a cage of rats,” she added.

“Ah.” Saker thought about that. “At a guess, they were using their witcheries.”

“They had a strong witchery glow,” she agreed. “I know there are vermin-catching witcheries, but carrying rats in a cage…?”

The door to the wardroom opened then, and Lord Juster entered with Mate Finch Aspen, calling over his shoulder for someone to bring the brandy before he expired with thirst. “A day to try the most patient of men,” he complained. “I have been poking around in the most
appalling
places. I swear, I smell of gunpowder, wood shavings, linseed oil and –” he sniffed at his sleeve “– lard, I believe.” He shuddered and extracted a pomander of spices from inside his embroidered doublet to wave under his nose with an expression of relief. “There are times – in fact most times – when I am unutterably relieved to have been born a nobleman. The thought of life as an artisan in some appalling backstreet quite distresses me.”

“What have you been doing,” Saker asked, “to have arrived at that startling conclusion?” Juster was playing the effete nobleman again. To amuse them, perhaps? No, he thought not. It was Juster’s way of releasing his own unrelated tensions.

“Selling spices – which command the most extraordinary price at the moment, I might add – and then traipsing around the streets buying up every cannon, crossbow, arquebus and pistol that I can find in Hornbeam, or on board the ships in port. I do wish we could
return to an era without gunpowder. I declare, it sells for about the same price per pound as grated nutmeg does at the moment. Outrageous!”

One of the sailors brought in the brandy, and Juster looked around at them all. “Well,” he said, raising his glass, “are you ready to rescue that fun-loving scatterwit of a prince, Ryce of Betany, and place him on his father’s throne?”

“That hardly sounds like a recommendation for the change,” Saker said.

“Of course it is. Scatterwits like Ryce listen to advice. Mad kings like Edwayn do not. I foresee a golden era of government by a consensus of nobles and pen-pushing accountants! Which is surely a better way to rule.” He raised his goblet. “King Ryce!”

Saker drank the toast, but he rolled his eyes, nonetheless.

T
he sound of the door to her prison opening unexpectedly terrified her.

The guards brought meals twice a day; Bealina was used to that. Garred, bless him, was thrilled each time. Poor wee mite, he was bored.

It wasn’t those times that started her shivering with terror, almost fainting with horror. It was the other times. Like this.

Valerian Fox standing there, with that smile on his face. A predator’s smirk, anticipating its prey.

Dear Va, not again, please
…
not again.

She started shaking and moved so that when Fox looked her way, Garred was out of his line of sight. The boy had fled to the corner of the room the moment the sorcerer entered, and now sat with his back to them, his head ducked. His terror of the man was so intense he refused even to look at him, and she was glad, at least, of that.

“Yes, I’m back,” he said crossing the room to where she stood, unable to control her trembling. “Returned for another taste of your loveliness. Should I tell Ryce what we do, sweet, sweet Bealina? Should I tell him how you squirm in my arms?” He pretended to consider it. “No, I think not. For the moment he stays in his holdfast, which means he bothers me not at all. If I let him know you are here, and not safe in Throssel, he may do something foolish… But rest assured, there is one day when I will tell him, so that he dies knowing.”

She wanted to scorn him, to say something clever and cutting. But always there was the memory of what he had done to her, starting a day or two after she’d arrived in Vavala. Always there was the horror to remind her.

“Tell me, has your bleed come yet?”

She wanted to lie, but there it was again. That black tarry touch of coercion, oozing into her mind, stripping it bare of any chance of rebellion.

“No,” she whispered.

His smile broadened. “Let’s just make certain it doesn’t, shall we?”

She shrank back against the stone of the wall and closed her eyes, tried so hard to find resistance somewhere inside her, but the tar was there, making her compliant as he lifted her skirts, kneaded the flatness of her stomach and said, “Ah, yes, he calls to his father, this sorcerer. Shall we let him feel his sire, m’dear?” And then he was thrusting into her, hard and uncaring of her pain, triumphant and victorious, while the tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.

Afterwards, after he had gone, she turned to the open window. She leaned on the sill, looked down at the roof below. Was it high enough? Would she die? Anything would be better than this…

“Mama.”

Garred was there, tugging at her skirt, his eyes wide and scared.

She wiped away the tears, smiled down at him and said, “Yes, sweetheart. He’s gone. We’ll play now.”

Her precious son, and Fox’s perfect weapon.

Gerelda shivered in spite of the warmth of the day. Vavala was a changed city and no bright sun and cloudless sky was going to bring any cheer to the streets now. Although there were no outward signs of war, there was no laughter along the thoroughfares. No smiles, no happiness, no… No sense of normality. That was it. No hucksters, no buskers, no costermongers promoting their wares with noisy banter. And whenever had Vavala been without its musicians on the corners? She did not need a witchery to know that there was something badly amiss in the Pontifect’s marble city.

Folk put their heads down so as not to meet the gaze of those around them. Glances towards her and Perie were sidelong, a flicker of quickly averted eyes. Were people afraid, or merely cautious? Hard to tell. There was a disproportionate number of unsmiling clerics in the streets. Their clerical medallions, once just a silver representation of either an oakleaf or water, now had an addition: a gold leaping fox.

Perhaps worst of all was the absence of children. Those citizens who had returned after the battle had not brought their families with them. Which said a lot.

After passing the guards at the gate, she led Peregrine into the streets near where the oak shrine had once graced the banks of the River Ard. In its place was an expanse of dark, brooding briars and brambles, nettles and thorned creepers. Thin wraiths of mist snagged and tore on the thorns, and slithered through the leaves.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She left him on the breakwater wall while she looked to see if there was a message from the Pontifect for her, as she did every time they passed by a hidden shrine. First, she had to locate a small plant called Shenat Blood, then find the luck-letter box. This time, when she opened the stone casket, she found a long, detailed letter in Fritillary’s handwriting. She replaced it with her own coded missive summarising what she and Perie had done since her last communication.

She would need time to decipher Fritillary’s code, not to mention her handwriting, for she had the habit of crossing the sheet with lines written at right angles. Shoving the letter into her tunic unopened, she replaced the casket lid and returned to Peregrine.

“Where are we going now?” he asked, slipping down from the wall.

“What can you tell me about the city so far?”

He pulled a face. “The black smutch is everywhere. It’s hard to single out where it came from originally. There’s a lot of Grey Lancers.”

“What about sorcerers? What about Valerian Fox?”

He gestured at the building looming over the river further downstream, the Pontifect’s palace. “Valerian Fox is in there. I can feel him like a big black spider sitting in the middle of his web. He’s much stronger than when I came close to him before. He’s…” He hunted for the right word. “… brimming with power.”

“Sated on stolen lives, the canker,” she muttered, her deep-seated anger spilling over into words.

“He’s too powerful. If I get close to him, he’ll know who I am and what I want. I won’t be the one to kill him.” He left unspoken the words he could have uttered:
He will kill me.

She changed the subject. “And the man we were following?”

Just outside Broom on the Ardronese–Valance border, Perie had picked up the smutch trail of a sorcerer leading a small group of Grey Lancers. They’d been following that man’s smutch ever since, but the group had been travelling fast and they’d never managed to catch up.

Perie shrugged. “He’s here, somewhere in the city. We’ll find him.”

She felt a momentary satisfaction. Another one dead soon enough. But what was the use if Valerian still lived? He could keep birthing his line of tainted children. Fritillary had hoped Perie would be Valerian’s nemesis, but Gerelda knew better now.

“I think we need a good meal and a good sleep before we tackle him,” she replied. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

“We’ll find a pot-house.” She’d once known every good eating place in Vavala, but war had visited the city since then. “There used to be one not far from the main palace gates. It’s a good place to sit and watch who comes and goes.”

The pot-house had a long trestle table and benches outside the door to the street. In spite of the pleasant warmth of the sun, most of the customers preferred to sit inside. The only other person was a single man at one end of the table, leaning back against the wall, clutching a mug.

Gerelda hated to be cooped up in a room when there were lancers about, so she and Perie ordered the food inside and sat outside. Perie occupied himself with the task of demolishing everything heaped on his plate as soon as it was delivered, ignoring her interest in the visitors to the palace down the road.

After a while she began to tire of it herself. As far as she could tell, the people she saw were either servants or clerics. Of far more interest was the fact that the man at the other end of the table appeared also to be on watch. Surreptitiously she switched her attention to him. Middle-aged, bearded, greying, wearing nondescript clothes, none too clean, that spoke of a farmer or possibly an artisan. He was unshaven and his nails filthy. He looked as if he had been sleeping rough.

Of even more interest was the bundle he had with him. A tote
bag of good quality leather and a coat wrapped around something which might possibly have been a sheathed sword. Alert now, her casual glance became a careful survey. There was nothing about him that suggested a fighting man or a guard or one of the Grey Lancers. Nor was there anything that suggested a soldier. He was half slumped against the table, hands curled lovingly around the mug of whatever he was drinking. All the appearance of a man down on his luck.

And yet she was sure he was watching the open gateway to the palace compound with far more interest than a casual observer.

She bent her head towards Perie’s ear to ask quietly, “Is there any chance that the sorcerer we’ve been following is in the palace?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think he’s over in that direction somewhere, at least half a mile.” He pointed to where he meant. “He’s not moving at the moment. This whole city is reeky with smutch, though.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but just then he stiffened, alert, and grabbed her hand.

“Grey Lancers,” he said. “Coming from that direction.” He nodded away from the palace.

“Many?”

“Twelve? Fifteen?”

“Sit tight. They shouldn’t have any interest in us.”

The men shambled up the road, more like a mob of unruly louts than soldiers. None of them was carrying a lance, but they all wore swords and most had daggers strapped to thighs or biceps or stuck through their belts. Not that she was foolish enough to underestimate how dangerous and unpredictable they could be. She glanced at Perie. His face was pallid, and he’d laid down his spoon.

They stopped at the pot-house, but neither she nor Perie interested them. They wanted ale. They entered the taproom and yelled for the innkeeper.

Gerelda turned her attention to finishing her meal as quickly as she could, but just as she cleaned her plate, six of the lancers emerged from inside to sit at the other end of the trestle table. A serving girl and the landlord carried out platters of bread and cheese and ale. As the men began to eat, Gerelda stood, hoping to leave as unobtrusively
as possible. When Perie hurriedly scrambled to his feet to follow, one of the lancers spied the man in the corner.

“Pox on’t, lookee who’s here!” he called out, and his tone was gleeful. “One of them men Cap’n Fox let get away!”

The others turned to look. The man in the corner raised his eyes but didn’t react, which made her wonder what was wrong with him. No sensible person thought Grey Lancers could be ignored, surely.

“The bastard must’ve followed us,” said another, a gaunt, pale fellow with a drooping moustache, before adding with a chilling lack of emotion, “Kill him. Ought have been done on the road.” All of the lancers leaped up, groping for their weapons.

It was a perfect opportunity for Gerelda and Perie to leave, unnoticed and unremarked. The man – for all that he was so casually condemned – meant nothing to her. Yet as she began to turn away, her gaze met his and something in his eyes halted her. A terrible expression of loss – not of fear, but rather the look of a man assailed by an unbearable despair. Inwardly she groaned, acknowledging that she was about to do something unutterably stupid.

She unsheathed her sword and killed the lancer standing next to her.

Before the man had even slid off her blade to the ground, an expression of astonishment and disbelief on his face, Perie had his spiker in his hand. He dropped to his knees beside her, disregarded by the lancers. Face expressionless, he casually used the dagger to hamstring one of the lancers with a slashing cut to the back of the knee. The man collapsed, his mouth gaping open in astonishment.

Without missing a beat Gerelda swung the edge of her blade into the next member of the group, cutting his sword arm to the bone. He howled, a curdling sound that mingled with a string of screamed expletives from Perie’s victim. All the lancers in the taproom would be on top of them in moments.

Pickle it
,
you daft woman. Why are you doing this? You
never
interfere in things that aren’t your business, you ninny
…

Three down, but there were three to go.

Two of the three rushed at her. In the seconds she had left, she believed she was going to die because of her own stupidity.

The men ignored Perie, which was ill-advised. As she engaged the
next fellow, Perie jabbed his spiker upwards into the genitals of another. The bench they’d been sitting on went flying as the man flailed in shock. Blood sprayed through the air, drenching her. She had no idea where it had come from. She was in a clinch, sword to sword, no blood drawn, and Perie’s opponent was doubled over, shrieking.

The man she was fighting was huge, much stronger than she was, and he was bending her backwards over the table. She fought for balance, and lost. He had her flat to the tabletop, pressing her down with his body, their blades crossed right in front of her nose. She knew she was defeated, but refused to surrender. Given his weight, it was useless to wriggle. Instead, she used the thumb of her free hand to jab him in the eye. He yelled and drew back his arm in order to slam a fist into her face.

Before the blow connected, a sword blade was whacked into his neck and she was doused with another shower of blood. She scrambled up, blinking, and wiped a forearm across her cheek. She was face-to-face with the bearded man.

He gave a crooked grin. “Run,” he suggested.

Breathless, she took in the carnage at a glance – six bodies. Dead ones, not wounded – and she had only killed one of them. Perie was already ten paces away, racing down the street, his spiker still in his hand. The remainder of the lancers were spilling out of the taproom.

She took the man’s advice.

They pounded down Palace Walk, Vavala’s main thoroughfare, following Perie. The few pedestrians took one look at the bloodied trio, all of them still with their blades unsheathed, blood dripping from hilt to tip, and scattered. One brief look over her shoulder told Gerelda that the closest of the lancers was maybe only fifteen paces behind them.