Traitor's Knot (epub) Page 13

  Against odds, alone, he survived to return.

  Braggen came south and entered the forest on foot to avoid leaving tracks for the head-hunters. He crossed the north fork of the River Arwent in the heat of high summer and paused to trap a black fox. As he intended, his smoke fire to finish the cured hide drew the clan scouts who watched over the downlands near Caith-al-Caen. News was exchanged, and directions.

  Under the regal crowns of the oaks, the warm air scarcely trembled. The fragrance of greenery clung thick as glue, shafted with sun through the heat haze. In the shaded glens, the deer drowsed through midday, fawns asleep while the does stamped off flies. Braggen slipped on his way, his step just as furtively silent, and his strapping frame lost in the brush.

  Worn lean from the trail, he arrived at the s'Valerient chieftain's encampment in the lucent glimmer of twilight. He carried the pelt slung over his shoulder and the black brush strung at his belt.

  The pack of clan children discovered him first. 'Look! It's Braggen! Braggen's alive! Another Companion is back!' Like starlings, they descended, calling his name. Their eager hands plucked at his clothing. He tousled heads, fended the boys off his knives, and detached the girl toddler before she wore the caked mud from the last stream he had forded.

  No welcoming crowd of adults came forward. No one mentioned the loss of his clan braid.

  Instead, given space out of mourning respect, two men were sent by the watch. They arrived unaccompanied, armed and dressed in the fringed, forest leathers that carried no other adornment. The expected, tall figure was slightly ahead, with the other sturdy and short, striding fast through the failing light. The children all scattered. Left standing alone, his heart heavy in him, Braggen confronted Sidir, and after him, Eriegal, whose round face was no longer merry. 'We are four. After us, of fourteen, only Deith is still living.'

  Deith, who had not gone with the war-band, but remained in Strakewood, holding the tenuous ground in Deshir since the massacre at Tal Quorin that had savaged a whole generation.

  Now, the other survivors were fallen. Against crushing numbers and impossible odds, their lives had been given as well, to win their prince free of Lysaer's massed assault on Daon Ramon Barrens.

  Braggen, who was not a demonstrative man, bent his close-cropped head, overcome. 'I knew there were deaths. Just how many, the scouts would not tell me.'

  Grief closed his fists against helpless pain. Then Sidir caught him, gripped his massive frame close, and Eriegal embraced him also. Braggen wept with these two, whose lot had been hardest to bear: their doomed earl's command had asked them to stand guard for the children and families in Halwythwood. Of them all, the bravest and best had been spared to advise the heirs chosen to inherit the s'Valerient titles. Barach, not yet twenty, was now Earl of the North, and clan chieftain ruling Deshir. Young Jeynsa, a hot-tempered and rebellious seventeen, must swear her oath and stand as caithdein to the crown of Rathain.

  Eriegal stood back first. His crooked smile broke through as he tipped his fair head to bear-bait the comrade, whose return was a gift unexpected. 'You've hacked off your hair, man? Whoever she was, she must have shown you a rousing performance to have filched your braid as a keepsake.'

  'We were certain the Fatemaster had passed you for judgement,' Sidir added, gruff. 'Since you're not maimed, we're right to presume the knife-work was yours, not a townsman's?' The same height as Braggen, but spare and long-boned, he lost none of his quiet dignity through the moment of desperate emotion. 'Come in. You'll be starving. Better expect you won't get any sleep until you've satisfied Feithan's questions.'

  Braggen gripped the fox hide, too nerve-wracked to eat. He had dreaded this meeting with the earl's widow for the better part of three months. Now the hour was upon him, he pressed the question. 'What of Jieret's successors?' Eriegal hooked fretful hands on his antler-bossed belt. 'Barach will come once the runner's informed him. He's out on patrol with the archers.'

  'And Jeynsa?'

  The two Companions exchanged a taut glance. Then Sidir murmured, 'You'll see.'

  Flanked by his peers, Braggen crossed the encampment. Since the return of the Prince of Rathain, increased persecution by head-hunters had redoubled an already rigorous security. No open fires burned after dark. The Companion passed through the lines of dimmed tents, then ducked into the balsam-sweet shadows of the central lodge.

  The hide flap slapped shut, and Braggen stopped cold. Trophy hide on his shoulder, scarred hands crossed on his sword-pommel, he stood speechless, while Sidir lit a pine knot in a staked iron sconce, and Eriegal dodged to avoid being mown down by a tiny dark woman clad in leathers.

  'Braggen!' Quick as a sparrow, Earl Jieret's widow stretched on tiptoe and brushed a kiss on his bearded chin. Her black-and-silver hair still wore the s'Valerient clan braid. Bound by a deer-hide fillet, her brow showed a crease of stunned disbelief. Then her brown eyes spilled over with tears. 'Ath Bless! You've returned. We thought - ah, no matter!' Ravaged by grief, but as tirelessly vital, she embraced every part of him she could reach, then hammered his broad chest until his ornery nature relented, and he sat on a grass-stuffed hassock.

  The taciturn Companion offered up the rare fox pelt.

  'Who told you?' Feithan whispered, overcome yet again. She raised the silky fur to her cheek. Eyes shut, she thanked him. Steady in his silent support, Sidir stood at her back, while Eriegal dragged up a second hassock. She gave way and sat. 'You have news? It can wait. You're aware, we've lost Jieret.'

  Braggen nodded. 'I knew.' He found all speech difficult. 'Prince Arithon was blood-bonded. His Grace told me he sensed the High Earl's crossing at the moment that spirit left flesh. But we were already past Leynsgap, by then. I cannot say how my lord fell.'

  'We were told,' informed Sidir. Enough time had passed, he could force his tone level. 'Luhaine of the Fellowship brought word back to Halwythwood. He said, further, that Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn had survived, and that his enemies could no longer reach him. But the Sorcerer would not answer our questions or disclose our liege's location.'

  Braggen glanced down, marked hands laid uncertain before him.

  Where Sidir's grave tact preferred space, Eriegal flared to impatience. 'Ath, you're too quiet. You know where his Grace is! Is that why you're shorn of your clan braid, for shame? Braggen, where did you fall short?'

  The accused Companion snapped up his chin, bitter. Against precedent, his anger turned inward. 'I did not fail in my charge! As a man with no other skill but the sword, I stood ground at my prince's shoulder. I could, and I did, defend him with weapons. But I am not made as his chosen caithdein. I was not fit to stand in the breach and challenge his adamant spirit.'

  'What happened?' pushed Eriegal. 'Where did Arithon go to seek refuge?'

  Braggen stood in a rush, with Feithan beside him, her small hands caging his fist. 'Peace!, All of you! This was Jieret's lodge, and he would not have your contention.'

  And trembling, Braggen was first to back down. He turned from Eriegal's leashed accusation, and with a dignity no man had seen, eased the earl's widow back to her seat. Then finesse deserted him. 'My lady, on my word of honour, the truth: I cut off my clan braid at need, in order to pass through the lines as a townsman. Now it's my right to know. What happened to your husband in Daon Ramon Barrens?'

  While Sidir pressed long fingers over closed lids, and Eriegal watched, white, Feithan looked up at the man who overshadowed her, savage and raw with resentment. She told him. 'Jieret was captured by Lysaer's Lord Commander of the Alliance armed forces. He was wounded, Luhaine said, and not handled kindly. Yet he was kept alive. His enemies thought to use him as a hostage to bring the Teir's'Ffalenn back to heel.'

  'Ath's mercy!' gasped Braggen. 'For Jieret's life? Defend us! For that, the s'Ilessid pretender would have flushed Arithon from cover.'

  Sidir bared his face, and found grace at last to lift the burden from the brave woman now sorely bereft. 'Jieret knew that, as well. He found resources no other
caithdein has tapped. The Sorcerer told us he achieved true greatness, and opened a gateway into the mysteries through his sworn tie to the land. Signs and wonders were shown to men on that night. Lysaer's war host was paralysed, unable to fight. They could not be made to regroup until Earl Jieret received a sorcerer's twofold death, first by a sword through the heart, then by immolation with fire.'

  'The hand on the blade was Lysaer s'Ilessid's,' Eriegal added with wretched clarity. 'Our High Earl met a dog's end, without succor. Now, tell us the fate of Prince Arithon.'

  Pale to the lips, Braggen backed up until his huge frame bumped against the center pole of the lodge tent. There, he braced, at a loss for retort. His fellow Companions held their wary ground, well aware he was wont to strike out when cornered.

  Yet Braggen gave them no whisper of argument. His volatile fists stayed locked at his sides. 'Grant me the presence of my acting clan chief. Also Rathain's appointed caithdein since, in this life, I can scarcely bear to repeat what will have to be said.'

  Feithan arose. Silent and quick, she fetched wooden cups and a bottle of cherry brandy. Eriegal woke out of his bristling distress. He took Sidir's urgent hint and left to bring Jeynsa, who had yet to make timely appearance.

  Nothing remained except to wait, with Braggen's raw nerves wrapped in the lodge tent's familiar, close shadows. Though he had a wife and a daughter, kept safe, in the northern wilds of Fallowmere, this place was as much a home to him. Head bent, he breathed in the pitch scent of resin, underlaid by the fragrance of leather and goose-grease and the wax used for weatherproofing the camp gear. The summer furnishings seemed as they always had, except for the absence of Jieret's sword and the dearth of scouts coming and going. The encampment had been three-quarters stripped of its fighting men, blood-bought cost of a crown prince's freedom.

  None too soon, the pent silence shattered, cut across by a male voice, declaiming, overlaid by a woman's vituperative anger. The lodge door flap cracked open, careless of the light, and Jeynsa strode in, still raging.

  Brows pinched into an iron scowl, eyes like chipped flint, she encountered the motionless presence of Braggen, and stopped. Her vivid regard raked him, over. From cropped head to scraped boots, she missed only the foxtail melted at one with the shadow.

  Her opening was hostile. 'Did you cut your hair out of protest as well?' Against the stunned stillness, she raked back the hacked bangs that remained of her shining brown hair.

  Eriegal moved, shut the door flap, then caught her arm. 'You have no shame!' Despite his dumpy stature, he man-handled her subsequent, wild cat wrench. Curbed, she stood glaring, hard-breathing and heedless of the deep bruise her clamped wrist was going to show later.

  His voice level, Sidir explained from behind. 'She cut off her hair rather than suffer the formal ritual of her investiture.'

  Braggen stared, horrified. 'Girl, you did this to avoid receiving the pattern of the caithdein's traditional clan braid?'

  'We're a perfect, matched pair, as you see,' Jeynsa sheared back. 'Why'd you cut yours?'

  'That's enough!' Feithan ploughed Eriegal aside to confront her daughter. 'No get of mine is brought into this world to insult clan heritage under this roof! Apologize, Jeynsa! Right now.'

  Strapping at seventeen, with her sire's tough strength clad in scout's knives and leathers, the girl towered over her mother. Nonetheless, her eyes dropped. Smoking with banked defiance, she spoke the rote phrases, then perched against the board trestle. To Braggen, she said, 'You have news of my father? Don't trouble to report. I know how he died. By Sight, I stood witness. No reason, and no blooded prince under sky could justify how he suffered!'

  Struck breathless, Braggen appealed to Sidir. 'What's she saying? Ath's own mercy. The High Earl was tortured?'

  'Worse.' Jeynsa spat on the packed earth floor, while the brand dipped her drawn features in carmine. 'He was mutilated, degraded, cut dumb, and drugged. Did you know, when they finished, they threw his charred skull to be mauled in the teeth of the tracking dogs?'

  'He was gone by then, and you know it!' Feithan's composure withstood the cruel pressure. 'Luhaine swore you his oath that your father was raised beyond pain when his spirit crossed over Fate's Wheel.' Upright, arms folded, she drew a fierce breath. 'But that's not why you won't forgive him. Be honest! You hate what happened because Jieret held true to his oath as caithdein. He died, and died well, for this land and his prince. You reject the willed choice of his crossing because of his triumph, that dared come before his own family.'

  'What's to forgive?' whispered Jeynsa, while the tears welled and spilled. 'Not Father! It's the crown prince who left him that I would cry down for Dharkaron's redress.'

  Braggen shoved off the center post. 'Prince Arithon's will had nothing to do with this! Jeynsa! I was there.' Helpless anguish broke through, as, after all, he spoke out before Barach arrived to share witness. 'Your father broke orders. As caithdein, by right claim of precedence to the realm, he rejected Prince Arithon's instructions. I was to have been the one sacrificed to Lysaer. Jieret was your liege's choice to return, safe and sound, to this hearthstone.'

  'I don't believe you,' Jeynsa gasped, unappeased. Her glimpsed sight of the fox-brush roused more galling venom. 'I still see the sword fall. Every night, I smell the stench of the pyre. My father's heart's-blood runs red through my dreams. He had no tongue, and no voice, beyond the wretched sound Ath gave an animal.'

  'That's quite enough, Jeynsa!' Sidir thrust forward; yet Braggen, like rock, only shuttered his face with blunt fingers.

  'I will tell you this much,' he said, muffled, then lowered his arms, unutterably altered. 'I heard our prince beg. I listened to his appeal to Earl Jieret. His Grace used words that no man I know could possess the stern fibre to refuse. Naught but one. Out of love, this prince's caithdein held firm. When I tell you what our liege risked to spare Rathain's royal blood line, you will realize: Arithon was forced upon Earl Jieret's mercy. As the man sworn to preserve our crown heritage, your father rejected his liege's bared will. There is no fault, and no blame for what happened. No reason, past the needs of this kingdom, that have robbed us all without quarter. As the last standing witness, I promise: none suffers more for the death of your father than the prince now left burdened, and living.'

  A soft sound, to the left, as Sidir responded. He gathered Feithan's slight form as she swayed, lent the shield of his shoulder, while Jeynsa uncoiled and rose to full height, untamed as a wounded lioness. 'Then where is his Grace? Why is he not here? Why are you and Luhaine sent to speak in his place?'

  Braggen's stripped attention stayed on her. 'His Grace couldn't,' he said, numbed. 'To evade Lysaer's war host and escape certain doom through the madness of Desh-thiere's curse, Prince Arithon claimed refuge by entering the maze in the Mathorns.'

  'Kewar!' Sidir was rocked. Eriegal stared, aghast, while Feithan pushed straight, and Jeynsa, wild with malice, burst into jagged laughter. 'Oh, how apt! The score of his blood debts shall kill him, no doubt.'

  But it was Sidir whose grave intellect interpreted Braggen's strained face. 'His Grace hasn't died, has he?'

  The Companion shook his head, anguished. 'In fact, he survived. I've been charged to bring word by the Fellowship Sorcerers. The Prince of Rathain withstood the harsh challenge. His Grace is fit, and still sane.'

  'And?' whispered Eriegal, as the pause grew prolonged.

  'Barach should hear this,' Feithan broke in.

  Yet Jeynsa's merciless, challenging stare impelled the reluctant answer.

  'The last living blood of Rathain has been granted sanctuary, embraced by the old code of guest welcome. His haven is Kewar, and his host is no less than the Sorcerer, Davien the Betrayer.'

  'A fine, abrasive pair they will make,' Jeynsa snapped. 'I wish I could be there to watch the fur fly as they tear each other to ribbons.' She spun and stalked out, just barely careful to mask the light as she pushed through the door flap.

  The shocked quiet lingered, a speechless
abyss: the last survivor of Rathain's royal line remained with the renegade Sorcerer. Davien, whose incentive had fomented rebellion, raised the towns, and broken the rule of the high kings over five hundred years ago.

  Against cracking tension, Eriegal moved, crossed the lodge, and rescued the forgotten tray of refreshments. Braggen accepted the brandy thrust into his hand. Then he watched, brooding, as Feithan was coaxed to a seat on Sidir's dauntless insistence.

  She looked frail as cut paper, though her hands, bare of rings, did not tremble. As Eriegal poured a cup for her, Braggen spoke with a tact he had never possessed. 'No, lady. You will not apologize for Jeynsa's behaviour.'

  'Her defiance is setting a terrible precedent.' Feithan sighed. 'Ath knows, we've all tried. I can't make her listen.'

  'Prince Arithon will handle her,' Sidir assured, the wing of white in his hair a moonlit patch against darkness. His words offered hope. Of the four who remained, he knew the prince best, having shared the harrowing campaign in the mountains at Vastmark.

  Braggen knocked back his drink. Yet no fire in his belly could warm his heart. He had too much to say: the uneasy details that had allowed Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn to evade certain death inside Lysaer's closed cordon. The Companion who had partnered his Grace must choose whether to disclose the last words exchanged between prince and sworn liegeman, and whether to reveal the tenacious desperation behind Earl Jieret's terrible sacrifice. Until Barach arrived, and while Feithan regained her composure, Braggen sat with his forehead laid on his fist. Quiet, among friends, he wished he was numb. The trophy foxtail stayed tied to his belt, promised but not delivered to Jeynsa by the father lost in Daon Ramon. Who had broken the heart of his youthful successor because he had commanded another to stand in his place and, inevitably, had not come home.