“No. Be glad that you’re not down in the dungeon with the rest. I would’ve put you there, but the king asked that I hold off until everything is settled.” Groskin stared for a moment, then once more lowered his head and nodded.
Before we started out, Jusson sent another, bigger and better armed detachment to the Royal Garrison. “No heroics,” the king said to the detachment leader. “If you are challenged and cannot get through, return to us.”
It was a hodgepodge of soldiery that rode behind King Jusson. Riding on one side of Jusson were his lordlings, including Lord Esclaur who had won another battle with the royal physician. Gone was the mincing, affected lord. His tabard matched those of his fellows—a snarling wolf which was repeated on one of the banners. On the other side was Lord Commander Thadro, carrying the king’s shield, and the Royal Guard, their device a griffin, also repeated on a banner. And, of course, the lead bearers carried the king’s standard: a plain sword crowned. To lead, rule and defend.
We fast cantered towards the entry gate, the King’s Own we had left behind as guards coming out of the guardhouse and shaking their heads at Jusson’s query if anyone had passed. Just then we heard hooves thudding and the exploratory detachment rounded the bend of the road that led to the Royal Garrison at a gallop, augmented by the remaining garrison troops, mostly plain horse soldiers with a sprinkling of officers, plus the two missing royal guards.
Seeing us, they came to a stop, the detachment leader riding up to the king and saluting.
“Commander Loel and the rest of the officers are not there, Your Majesty,” the detachment leader said. “It appears they all left the compound by the sea escape.” The guard indicated the troopers. “These were locked in the stockade.” Loel had earlier imprisoned those who would oppose him, and when the few troopers who had escaped from the bridge alerted those who remained in the garrison that their attempt failed, they did a bunk out the back door. Suiden shifted on his horse next to me, frowning as he stared out over the blue waters, and I stared too, seeing the white dots of ships’ sails.
King Jusson detailed some of his Own and troopers to man the garrison, sending them back. Next, he turned his horse around and contemplated the green bridge. He raised his head and looked over at Trooper Basel who stood next to me in his stag persona. (He had been impervious to all hints that he stay behind with Laurel Faena.) They watched each other for a moment; then Jusson urged his horse onto the bridge, Thadro riding right behind holding the king’s shield. It held and everyone relaxed. His standard-bearers hurried in front of him, and we crossed the moat, ducking the odd bumblebee.
Once we were across, Jusson sent a couple of guardsmen down to the naval yard to warn them of the escaping deserters. Then we picked up speed, only to skid to a halt at a trooper’s cries behind us. We all slued around in our saddles and saw brambles spring up thick and green, then darken as they hardened, blocking the entrance to the bridge. Basel, looking pleased with himself, delicately picked his way back to my side.
“You do know,” I said as the haunt reached me, “that we have to go back that way, don’t you?” Basel ignored me as we started down the street. “Have it your way then, but the king won’t be too happy if he has to hack through it in order to get home.” I thought I heard a faint raspberry.
As wild rides go, it wasn’t much of one, Jusson keeping us to a canter at all times. When we reached one particular square, he briefly stopped and sent detachments off, some to secure the city gates and one with a wolf pack lordling to “bring whomever you find at the House of Dru to the palace.” We took off again, and I remained where I was, planted amid my mates, neither pushing forward nor falling behind, wedged between Suiden and Javes with Jeff having my back.
The streets were deserted as we clattered through them, even the commercial squares and avenues quiet and void of people. I kept scanning ahead, expecting to meet up with some sort of opposition, and was rather unnerved by the oppressive silence broken only by us—the city seemed to be holding its breath. I thought of the fighting dragons over our farm, and wondered if the citizenry here were cowering in their own cellars.
We rounded a corner and poured into a square, and I sat up straighter in my saddle as I recognized it. My eyes picked out the soot stains on walls from torches and I felt my lips pull back from my teeth. Cousin Teram’s house. As we drew nearer, I heard the sounds of hooves against cobbles, and mounted men carrying a standard rode out from one of the side streets that bracketed Flavan House. The bannermen shifted, revealing their standard—and I blinked. It was a lion rampant, crowned.
“Oh, spare me!” We moved closer and I could see their tabard devices. “Right out of the same damn pantomime!”
“It’s all about symbols, Rabbit,” Suiden said. “Goodness and light against twisted and dark—and with this Teram’s casting himself as light’s champion and the kingdom’s deliverer.”
Even in battle, Captain Javes wore his quiz glass and he lifted it now, peering through it. “And here comes Locival now with his broadsword Lion’s Heart, ready to smite the evil sorcerer.” Teram, wearing the same outfit from the masque, rode behind the bannermen. Javes did his bugger me silly smile. “That’s you, I suspect, Rabbit.”
The glare I gave Javes was evil, though it probably lost something with the butterflies fluttering around me. (Fortunately, the wind seemed content to leave my hair alone.) “I am not—” I began.
“Bones and bloody ashes!” Jeff said over me as a shocked murmur went through our men. I snapped forward again and saw the missing Royal Garrison troops mixed in with Teram’s own men pouring out from the side street to form ranks behind Lord Teram. Both mercenaries and renegades were led by the Royal Garrison commander, Loel.
“Oh, I say,” murmured Javes. “Lunkhead himself.” His brows rose. “I wonder who bunked out the sea escape?”
“So do I,” Suiden said.
I paid scant attention to the two captains—my gaze was riveted on who rode with Commander Loel. “Sirs—” Javes and Suiden looked where my finger was pointing, and they grew very still as Slevoic took up a position behind the commander.
“Well, it seems as though we’ve found the missing staff and skin,” Javes said.
The sun flashed off the shield Slevoic carried, turning it green, then purple. I allowed my eyes to shift to the hauberk, now turning for a brief moment pink, then back to white. Slevoic held in his other hand Prudence Oak’s body with a flag attached to it, and Javes leaned forward, trying to get a better look. “The House of Dru’s device: an oak tree,” he said. He gave a short laugh. “How ironic.”
Ironic. I blinked to clear the red mist that rose up at Slevoic’s mocking defilement. “Murdering spawn of hell,” I said as my hand grew warm.
“Yes,” Suiden said, a deep rumble in his chest. “I want this pastan auc.”
Rabid dog? I frowned at Suiden’s Turalian as it occurred to me that Slevoic hadn’t translated this morning at the embassy.
King Jusson signaled and it fell silent in the square, the snapping of the pennants and standards the only sound. Then Lord Teram stood in his stirrups. “Citizens of Iversterre—”
“No pretty speeches, Teram ibn Flavan e Dru.” Jusson’s mild voice carried over the entire square. “You are in rebellion against your king.”
“He’s of Dru?” I stared at Teram in horror, my skin crawling at the thought of being connected to Slevoic and Gherat’s House.
“His mother,” Suiden said. “No blood relation to you.”
“What do the aristocracy do? Go around marrying each other?” I asked.
“Yes,” Suiden replied. “Your parents did.”