I spared a glance back before the curve of the road took me out of sight; the lad was looting the body of his late friend. I rode on, unconcerned. Even if he caught up with me, killing him would be no great task and no dishonor, since he’d have forfeited any claim to mercy along with his oath. The horse halted, raised its tail and dropped a heap of steaming gurry on the road, an entirely fitting comment, in my opinion.
The fire in the blood that comes from a fight, however trivial, warmed me for a while and in any case, this late in the season, the weather was increasingly mild. Still, a little anger at myself for getting caught like that seared me as the noon sun rode high above me, drawing wraiths of steam from the sodden ground, the spring air full of the green promise of renewal. I found myself gripped by sudden sadness and reined in to take a drink of water, trying to wash the tight dryness from my throat.
How long would it be before I could think of Aiten without that strangling ache? It was riding alone that was doing it, I realized, after so many years. I was missing his endless supply of dubious jokes, his blade matching mine as we protected each other in any fight we couldn’t talk our way out of. One of the cornerstones of my life was gone, a certain loss of confidence leaving a hidden hole threatening to trip me, even if it was apparent to no one but me.
I unlaced the neck of my coat; a warm garment in the spring sunshine. My fingers caught in the thong of my medallion, the insignia I bore as a physical reminder of the oaths I had sworn to my Prince and he in turn to me. I had Aiten’s as well, the bronze disc sewn inside my sword-belt, waiting for me to exact a double reckoning in blood from the bastard responsible for his death. Was I going to shove it down the enchanter’s throat or ram it edgeways up his arse? I mused. Whichever, I’d sharpen the edges first, just to make a point. By rights that debt was our master’s to claim or remit, but I had made a private vow of vengeance and hammered a nail deep into the door of Dastennin’s shrine to affirm it. We make no formal vows as we do to our patron, but the loyalties between sworn men are no less strong.
No, it was time to move on, I told myself. After all but losing myself to the drowning sorrow of my sister’s death from fever in my youth, I had found new purpose in taking service with Messire, hadn’t I? My duty was to him, my sword his to command.
The usual rat-infested hovel that passes for an inn in Lescar came into view as I crested a rise in the road. I was still holding my sword at my side, sticky with bloody detritus, so I gave my horse his head at the water trough and took possession of a rickety bench where I spread out oil and rags to clean the solstice gift Messire D’Olbriot had given me in recognition of my trials in his service the previous year.
It says a lot about Lescar that it wasn’t the sight of a man cleaning a bloody weapon that startled the pinch-faced little maid coming out to empty her ash bucket, but my accent; my Lescari has all been learned on Messire’s business around the border with home. I couldn’t fathom her concern; she only had about ten words of Tormalin, though I doubt she could have counted them. Eventually I gathered there was no fresh roast, so I took the gritty bread and sour cheese offered but declined the grayish stew, congealed in the pot from the night before. Evidently exceeding the reckoning with good Tormalin pennies, I won a startled smile when I declined the halved and quartered coin pieces she tried to offer me. I have no use for Lescari coin, even when it’s whole.
As I ate I fished out the letter I carried, brought by the Imperial Despatch to rescue me from the taut emotions of Aiten’s sorrowing family and sending me to ride the empty roads of Lescar over the Equinox festival. Well, that at least had been preferable to lining up with my brothers to entertain the nicely eligible daughters of Mother’s sewing circle. I took up the letter and the description on the outside caught my eye again, still making me smile.
Ryshad Tathel. An armspan and four fingers tall, thinly built but muscular. Hair black and curly, eyes brown, dark complected, clean shaven. Softly spoken but with a determined manner.
My father would have phrased it rather differently: “stubborn as a mule and twice as hard to shift when he digs his heels in” is what he had said of me to Messire’s Sergeant-at-Arms. That last sentence was written in a different hand. So, Camarl was rising rapidly in Messire’s counsels if he was being allowed to add personal notes to the Sieur’s letters. Saedrin grant it will be many years before the men of the family have to gather to elect a new head for the House of D’Olbriot, but it was starting to look as if I could win a tidy sum with a wager on Camarl. Perhaps I should lay some coin soon, while the odds were still long on a sister’s younger son succeeding.
From Messire D’Olbriot, given at his Toremal residence, the 26th day of Tor-Spring, to Ryshad Tathel, sworn man.
I send my greetings and my wishes that your trip provides consolation both to yourself and the family bereaved by Aiten’s loss.
I take this opportunity to repeat my own sorrow at his fate as well as the esteem in which I held him. I ash you to communicate this to his parents once more.
You are no longer required to attend me in Toremal when your visit is concluded. I have received a request from the Archmage of Hadrumal, Planir the Black, that you travel to Caladhria and join with one Shivvalan Ralsere, mage. You will find him with a recluse called Viltred Sern who dwells in the forests to the north of Cote, seat of one Lord Adrin, on the highroad to Abray.
This mage requests your assistance in continuing the pursuit you shared in at the end of For-Winter past. At such time as the Wizard Ralsere no longer has need of you, return to Toremal with all best speed. In the interim, keep me apprised of your movements with letters by Imperial Despatch or such other discreet means as you judge secure.
I am confident that you will perform this commission with your usual capability.
It was smoothly written in the fluent hand of Messire’s personal scrivener. I could just picture the Sieur, sat with a pile of documents, disposing of each with terse commands. My spirits rose; I’ve worked for Messire long enough to read what wasn’t written into the letter. I was to be his eyes and ears, his link to the Archmage’s plans for foiling the Ice Islanders. This offered better prospects of vengeance for Aiten than chasing garbled reports of foreigners in the backwoods of the ocean coast, which is what I’d spent the latter half of winter doing.
I’d had no real dealing with wizards before getting caught up with Shiv the year before and we generally prefer to keep them at arm’s length in Formalin. I wondered what Shiv was up to; he and I owed each other a measure of our lives after that cursed trip to the Ice Islands. Still, his loyalties to his Archmage meant a different lodestone from mine governed his course, I reminded myself.
I ate and headed for the river. The false hope of the noonday sun faded, fine rain mizzling down like exhausted tears. I passed the remnants of a sacked village, reeking with the smell of burned wood rotting after the long winter and weeping black stains into the scorched earth. So much for the Dukedom of Marlier, where life was supposed to be safer than most. I found myself longing for the clean scent of salt on the wind from the ocean at home.
I looked across the valley with its coppices of hazel and ash, past the sprawl of a turf-roofed village amidst a striped patchwork of open fields and over the rough common grazing to the stark crag where the local Baron had his reddish stone castle. Formalin villages cluster close to the protections of their patron and have done since the Chaos when lordless and landless men ransacked the ruins of the Old Empire. Lescari peasants grub a living from the land as best they can and hope the battles pass them by. I noted the battlements were being raised, straw and clay that had protected the half-built fortifications from frosts stripped away; that could be useful intelligence for Messire. What threat did Marlier see waiting now the Equinox had opened the fighting season? I knew the Duke of Triolle had fouled his own nest comprehensively after heavy losses in the previous year’s fighting with Parnilesse. Did he have ambitions here?