The Palace of Red Stone was filled with the scent of honeyed cloves. They had been set on lattices above the braziers. It was an indulgence of his beloved wife that the Chancellor could not refuse. A slight breeze toyed with the silken drapes that hung across the bedchamber’s windows. Mordyn could hear the metal-shod tread of one of his guards on the terrace outside. The sound was so familiar he barely registered it, and it did not distract him from his task. With precisely weighted fingers, he worked balm oil into Tara’s naked shoulders. The sensation of her slick, pliable skin beneath his touch worked an almost hypnotic effect upon him. He inhaled deeply, savouring the rich mixture of smells: the cloves, the oil, her. There was nothing in his world to match the perfect, complex texture of such a moment.
He laid a soft kiss upon the back of her neck, felt the oil on his lips. She made an appreciative sound. He touched his tongue to her skin.
‘I saw you looking at me in the Great Hall this morning,’ she whispered.
‘How could I not?’ he asked.
He drizzled more oil over her skin and began to massage her neck. Her head eased forwards a little, and she lifted her hair out of his way.
‘You must be tired,’ she said.
‘Not yet.’
‘Did Gryvan give you what you wanted?’
‘Oh, yes. It was not so much to ask. Mere sense.’
‘So there will be war in the north soon? The ladies of the court twitter like a flock of birds. There has not been so much excitement for a long time. War against the Black Road would be so much more... traditional than the crushing of a rebellious Thane. There is nothing quite like the toing and froing of armies and reports of distant victories to spice up their lives.’
‘Distant victories are the best kind,’ said Mordyn softly. He pressed his ear against her back, listening for her heart. ‘One or two more of them and we shall have the best-loved Thane the Haig Blood has ever seen.’ He could hear it. He imagined that his own heart beat in time with hers.
‘Yes,’ she said as she turned to take him in her arms. ‘Keep the blood and the strife safely distant and we need only concern ourselves with better things.’
In Anduran, a great catapult was being hauled across the square by a team of mules. The machine looked like an angular creature from another land, intruding upon the order of the town.
‘They’re moving the second engine up,’ Kanin said. Wain peered over his shoulder. They were standing at a high window in their commandeered house.
‘Let us hope its workmanship is better than the first,’ she said. The throwing arm of the first to be put to use had split when it was tensioned. The man who missed the flaw in the wood lost half the skin from his back for the oversight.
‘How long before more are ready?’ Kanin asked.
‘We should have three or four of them by the morning.’ He knew her well enough to detect the undercurrent of detachment.
‘Not enough, you think?’ he pressed.
‘Who knows? We were granted some time by the victory at Grive, but not much of it. Perhaps they will come out of their own accord once we start throwing heads inside. They might be hungry, or sick, already. Our chances would be better if it was high summer.’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Kanin. Now that the elation of their victory was receding, he knew as well as Wain did that their position was as dangerously fragile as ever. There would be more armies marching up the valley before long. They had sent word commanding part of the army besieging Tanwrye to come south. It may or may not be possible: the Lannis garrison there would sally at the slightest sign of weakness. Other messengers had gone further, making for Kan Dredar. They would plead with Ragnor oc Gyre to unleash his own mighty army, now that Horin-Gyre’s daring had brought such a rich harvest within reach. Whether or not the High Thane would respond, Kanin had no idea.
A commotion outside turned him back to the window. Below, a band of Tarbains were driving a bullock along. The animal was recalcitrant, pulling against its halter and lowing in protest. The excited tribesmen jabbed at it with spears and shouted at one another. Points of blood speckled the bullock’s haunches.
‘Where have they got that from?’ snapped Kanin. ‘Igris!’
His shieldman came in at once and joined him at the window.
‘Find out where they’ve brought that animal from,’ commanded the Bloodheir. ‘If it’s within an hour’s walk have them whipped. They know that all goods near the city are to be handed over and recorded, don’t they?’
‘They do, but Tarbains are like children. They can’t hold a thought in their heads.’
‘Why should I care?’ snapped Kanin. ‘I don’t need you to tell me that they are children. I need you to enforce my orders.’
The anger in Kanin’s voice straightened his shieldman’s back and put an expression of rigid obedience on to his face. Kanin almost said something to dilute the harshness of his words. He chose not to.
Igris went out. Kanin could hear him shouting as he descended the stairs. It was in the nature of anger to be handed on and grow, and it would travel out to the tribesmen on the square.
‘The Tarbains will be ungovernable soon,’ Wain said. ‘Scores of them have scattered through the valley already. Almost all of the wild ones have gone; even some of the Saved.’
‘Let them go. We knew it would happen, and they’ll give Lannis and Kilkry a little more to worry about. The city and the nearest farms must feed the army, though. If Gyre had given us all the swords we asked for, we wouldn’t have to rely on these barbarians.’
Below, Igris emerged with a couple of other men and strode towards the Tarbains. He began to berate them loudly and they shouted back, gesticulating with their spears. The bullock, relieved of its captors’ harsh attentions, stood quite still and hung its head as if searching for grass among the inhospitable cobblestones.
‘I’m going to the castle,’ Wain said.
Kanin nodded. He did not turn as she left the room. Instead he watched as Igris knocked down one of the tribesmen with a back-handed blow. The bullock wandered off. A brawl developed.
Figures were moving on the battlements of Castle Anduran. From the safe vantage point of one of the houses fronting the castle, Wain could just make them out, although the light was too poor for her to see them clearly. Others were better placed: a few crossbow bolts lanced up from amongst the crude earthworks and wicker shields on the open ground beneath the castle walls. The shapes on the wall disappeared. She was sure none of them had been struck. She had been watching for an hour, awaiting the arrival of the siege engine.
The Bloodheir’s sister muttered a soft curse. As she strode back towards the centre of Anduran, she was oblivious of the groups of weary, dishevelled warriors she brushed past. The slow attrition of the siege filled her with frustration. She knew she must accept whatever fate decreed, and would do so; but the faith permitted—advocated, even—hope. The most unlikely victories could sometimes be won, for nothing mattered but what tales the Last God had told, and fate seldom took account of what seemed likely in the minds of mortals. The arrival of Aeglyss and his White Owls had proved that, if nothing else.
A liquescent cough from some invalid registered upon her thoughts. Signs of disease had begun to appear in the ranks of the Horin-Gyre army. Wounds festered in the wet and the dirt. Hot and cold fevers stalked the streets. The weakest had been culled before they even reached the city; dozens had died on the journey through Anlane. Now a fresh winnowing was under way.
The atmosphere amongst the besiegers was not helped by the presence of a huge Kyrinin warband encamped beyond the semi-derelict city walls. Despite their part in the battle, no one trusted the woodwights, or really understood what had brought them out from their forest lair in such numbers. To her irritation, Wain found Aeglyss in her head once more. Her brother refused to meet with the na’kyrim, and had insisted that the White Owls remain out of bowshot of the city.