Few people appeared to take note of the rough, fur-clad warrior and his young assistant. Flinn’s sharp eyes caught sight of a female knight, however, who seemed to find them of particular interest. She had been watching the swordplay practice but not participating in it. With a nod to her comrades, she excused herself and hurried off. Flinn lost sight of the woman far too soon for his liking, but he gave her no further attention. He was intent on reaching the castle’s large central tower: the donjon.
Someone caught his arm and stopped him midstride. Flinn’s hand flew to Wyrmblight’s hilt.
“Did you see—” Jo said, tilting her head in the direction the knight had gone.
Flinn relaxed his grip on Wyrmblight and nodded curtly. “Yes. I had thought I could get to the keep without being recognized, but apparently I was mistaken. If memory serves me, that was Madam Edwina Astwood. Watch my back!” He continued his way through the crowds, impatiently trying to find the quickest route. Within ten minutes, he stood before the keep.
The donjon was eight stories high, its windows placed at equidistant intervals. The white of the limestone looked grayer, dirtier somehow, than Flinn remembered. He looked at the southern tower and saw that its walls, too, had darkened over the years. Every window of the tower had been fitted with bars of black iron. Behind the bars flitted birds of all colors and sizes. The southern tower had once been Flinn’s home.
So Yvaughan did make the rest of our home into an aviary, Flinn thought. He had always liked Yvaughan’s birds well enough, but her enthusiasm for them had grown into an obsession. Her passion for two birds in particular had bothered him. She would go nowhere, not even the bedchamber, unless one of them went with her. Yvaughan favored the white bird and its buff-colored mate above everything—including her husband. Flinn frowned. Just when had she gotten the two birds? Shortly after he had attacked Verdilith? Was it really that long ago? He shook his head and turned his attention to more important matters.
As Flinn and Jo approached the donjon, he noted a new addition to the castle’s defenses. A steep-sided, deep canal circled the tower. The channel was fully twenty feet deep and twice that wide, with sides that stood at nearly right angles. The far wall of the canal extended straight up to form the walls of the donjon; no ledge ran between them. At the bottom of the canal, thousands of spearheads gleamed, rising from three-foot shafts. “Quite a deadly fosse,” Flinn murmured.
A sturdy wooden and iron bridge spanned the dry moat’s gap. The bridge was lowered now because of all the traffic the castle received on its monthly open council sessions. Long ago, Baron Arturus had reinstated the abandoned practice of arbitrating the common people’s concerns. On council day, the baron had permitted anyone to appear before him and the council to seek judgment or retribution. Flinn was glad to see that Baroness Arteris had upheld her father’s policy.
He turned his attention to a guard standing at the little gatehouse on the near side of the fosse. Flinn and Johauna approached the man.
“I wish to enter the donjon, gatekeeper,” Flinn said decisively.
The guard casually looked at Flinn and sighed, indifferent. “State your name and business, ruffian. We don’t let just anyone into the keep, you know.”
Flinn drew himself to his full height, Wyrmblight resting on the ground between his hands. “I am Flinn, former knight of the Order of the Three Suns,” he said. “Today is the open council, and I wish to speak before Baroness Penhaligon.”
The young guard’s eyes bulged. “I thought you were dead,” he said inanely. He opened the gate leading to the drawbridge and beckoned Flinn through.
“Not hardly,” Flinn growled between clenched teeth. He’d encountered this sort of response before, and he was in no mood for it today. His palm itched, and he rubbed it against the metal-clad pommel of Wyrmblight. He and Jo stepped onto the bridge, Jo following him at the requisite distance. A pair of guards wielding spears strode forward, and Flinn saw more lurking in the shadows of the archway. He halted halfway, as did the guards.
“Is something amiss, good sirs?” Flinn called out pleasantly enough, though a thread of irritation laced the words. Madam Astwood had doubtless informed the castle guard of his presence. Flinn prayed Brisbois wouldn’t be so cowardly as to flee.
“We have orders to escort you to Lord Maldrake’s chambers, peasant,” one guard said stiffly. “Will you come with us peaceably?”
Lord Maldrake? Flinn thought quickly. Why Lord Maldrake? To admit he’d misunderstood Flinn’s actions regarding the ogre? That seemed highly unlikely. Perhaps Maldrake had been promoted to castellan and was in charge of security. Or perhaps Maldrake was trying to protect Brisbois.
“I am here for the open council,” Flinn said as easily as he could. “I will be delighted to meet with Lord Maldrake either at the council hall or later today in his chambers.”
“But, sir, we have—” began one knight. She was interrupted by someone walking up behind the two guards.
“I’ll handle this, Gerune,” an approaching man said gruffly. When the guards hesitated, the man fixed them with an icy stare and said, “You may go now. Lord Maldrake may think this is a peasant matter, but it isn’t. This man will answer to me.” The guards turned and walked quickly away.
Sir Lile Graybow, castellan of the keep, strode forward and grasped Flinn’s wrist in greeting. He wore fine clothes and a gyrfalcon pendant, which signified his office. He had gained an extra chin, Flinn noticed, and his hair was thinner and grayer, but he was still Lile Graybow. Flinn sensed the steel that bound this man’s soul. The castellan’s position had always been, by tradition, filled by the knight most revered in all Penhaligon, and the rule still held true. Flinn had once hoped to take Graybow’s place when the man was ready to step down.
“Fain Flinn. As I live and breathe, I always knew you’d return one day, but events like this are unexpected, nevertheless,” Sir Graybow said.
“It’s good to see you again, Sir Graybow,” Flinn said formally. “I’m on my way to the council to explain the truth about what happened when I left here so many years ago. Aren’t you on the council anymore?”
“Yes, I am. However, I couldn’t pass up welcoming you back personally. I have my spies, and they told me you were here,” Graybow added conspiratorially. “It’s about time you returned. I wish I’d been around when you were accused. You deserved a fair trial and not a mobbing. I’d have kept the young hotheads in tow if I’d been there, believe me. But today will be your chance to amend old wrongs. Be careful—the same people who wished you ill back then are still here.” Sir Graybow gestured toward the donjon, and they began walking into the keep. As they did, the old knight looked over his shoulder at Jo. “See you’ve found yourself a squire. ’Least she knows protocol. Things have gotten a bit slack around here of late, but the baroness is trying. We make do.”
“You mentioned people who wish me no good, Sir Graybow,” Flinn said after a moment’s silence. “Sir Brisbois, for one, obviously. Is Lord Maldrake another? I barely remember him. Exactly who is he?” Flinn stopped abruptly inside the castle. He’d forgotten how lovely the donjon was, with its soaring stone pillars, patterned granite floors, and magnificent tapestries. Warm light beamed from hosts of magical lanterns.
The castellan came to a halt and turned to Flinn. He said slowly, “You mean you don’t know who Lord Maldrake is?”
When Flinn shook his head, Graybow continued, “He’s the man who married your wife.”
Flinn stared in stunned silence at the castellan.
“Come,” Graybow said, nodding toward the council chambers. “Justice is long overdue.”
In silence the two men passed through the giant doors into the great hall where the open council was held. The roar inside the hall was almost unbearable, as was the heat. Nearly two thousand men and women crowded into the great hall, all waiting their turn to state their case before the baroness and her council. Many had arrived in the night and waited for the doors to open at cock’s crow. At that time, pages and squires had immediately begun collecting names and complaints to give to the junior knights, who in turn filtered the more interesting or faster cases on to Baroness Arteris. The fourteen other council members handled the more mundane cases. Matters were swiftly presented to a council member—and swiftly decided. Although many peasants would have their case resolved that day, still more would be turned away once cock’s crow hailed the next morning.