A Man Betrayed (35 page)

Jumping on his
back, he brought the knight to the ground. Tawl drew up his arms and legs and
sprang backward. Blayze failed to find his footing and stumbled to the ground.
Tawl pounced like a mountain lion. He brought his left knee down hard on
Blayze's wrist. The bone cracked and the champion lost his grip on his knife.
Tawl kicked it away, out of reach. Shifting his position, he pinned Blayze to
the ground. By fixing his weight on the champion's thighs, he prevented the man
from leaping up.

The crowd was
stunned and thrilled in one. Cheers and hisses were heard in equal measure.
Nabber promised Borc that he'd never pocket another man in his life as long as
Tawl won the fight.

Tawl's blade came
down. Blayze struggled to keep it from his throat. He was fighting a losing
battle. With his right wrist broken, the champion was attempting to fend off
the knife. Tawl's sword arm might be burned, but it was still more than a match
for Blayze's left.

Just as the tip of
the blade pierced the skin, something happened. Tawl wavered. His arm shook and
then his body convulsed. His left arm shot to his chest and he lost his grip on
the champion.

The air quivered
with sorcery. Every hair on Baralis' body prickled with it. Someone was drawing
power upon the golden-haired fighter. It was in his lungs like a cancer.
Baralis sent out his awareness: he had to discover who was foolish enough to
attempt such a feat.

He was a blind man
feeling for edges. The drawing was weak, unfocused, the work of an amateur. He
followed the trail to a pinpoint in the crowd. A slight, cloaked figure was the
source.

Baralis felt the
fighter flex his will. It was a tangible force and it was backed up by fate.
Its strength was breathtaking. A warning flashed deep within Baralis. This man,
this golden-haired fighter who once was a knight, had a destiny so urgent that
it wouldn't let him succumb to the shock of the drawing. He was fighting it
tooth and nail. Baralis had heard about such men during his stay in the Far
South.. It was said that their fates would repel all interference--especially
from sorcery. Thieves, they were called, but he couldn't remember why.

Even as his hold
on the blade wavered, the knight still fought on. The sorcerer was weakening.
The power tautened like a drawn bow, ready to snap back. Inexperienced the
cloaked figure might be, but he had still drawn enough to bum the skin off his
own face.

The sharp tang of
sorcery brought saliva to Baralis' mouth. He looked closely at the instigator.
So small, so slight: it was a woman! Excited curiosity won over caution and
Baralis shaped a compulsion on his very next breath. Weaving with subtle
precision, he worked it below the thread of the drawing. An instant later the
cloaked figure turned and looked at him. With the cries of the crowd sounding
in his ears and the taste of sorcery still fresh upon his tongue, Baralis
recognized the face of Catherine of Bren.

The knight's will
fought back with deadly force. In that instant, Catherine lost control of the
drawing. A fraction of a second later, Baralis sent out a drawing of his own.
Not pausing to think, he directed every fiber of his soul toward the space
between Catherine and the knight. The drawing broke. Baralis heard the sound of
it snapping through the air. He sped to meet it. There wasn't enough time to
brace himself. It smashed against him with the force of a storm. His mind was
tom from his body and then he fell into the dark.

Nabber felt
certain that Tawl was a goner. The knight's seizure had given Blayze enough
time to recover both his strength and his blade. The champion took the knife in
his left and slashed at Tawl's face. Tawl was doubled up with pain, but he just
managed to turn away. The blade sliced his ear. Blayze moved forward again,
preparing to strike. The crowd cheered him on. Victory was in sight.

All of a sudden,
Tawl appeared to recover. He straightened his back and dropped his arm from his
chest. He looked into Blayze's eyes and smiled. A second later he kicked in the
champion's kneecaps. Both of them. The man fell to the ground. Tawl was on him
in an instant. He punched an elbow into his face, breaking his nose. Blood
splattered the features of both men. Tawl surprised the crowd by throwing away
his knife. He took Blayze's forehead in both hands and smashed his skull into
the ground. Again and again the man's head was brought down upon the stone
flooring. The crowd was horrified. All eyes were on the pool of blood which
surrounded the champion's face.

Nabber felt a sudden
tug on his arm. He tore his gaze away from the pit and found himself
face-to-face with the girl in the portrait.
"Make him stop!"
she
screamed. One swift second to put everything into place-she was obviously the
champion's sweetheart another second to ponder on the exaggeration of the
artist-the girl looked a lot more haggard in person-and then he was off,
leaping into the pit like a hero to the rescue.

He ran straight up
to Tawl. The knight was in a blood frenzy, aware of nothing except the need to
destroy. Nabber put a hand upon his arm and said gently, "Come on, Tawl,
time to stop. No need to fight anymore." The knight looked up. His eyes
were glazed, unfocused. Nabber realized he was far away in another place,
fighting a fight that could never be won. "Please, Tawl, for me. Please
stop." Tawl hesitated; his eyes cleared. He stopped and let Nabber pull
him away. Standing up, he began to make his way from the pit.

The crowd waited
in silence. In took Nabber a moment to realize what they were waiting for. The
red scarf of victory still lay on the ground. Instinctively, he knew Tawl would
never raise it. As his second, he could do it for him. Nabber picked up the red
marker from the floor and held it above his head. As he did so, he looked for
the hooded girl from the portrait. She was nowhere to be seen.

Maybor watched as
the young boy raised the scarf over his head and the crowd broke into an uneasy
applause. It was turning out to be a most interesting evening. By far the high
spot had been some five minutes earlier, when Baralis had collapsed where he
stood. One minute the king's chancellor was his usual contemptible self,
stealing glances from the side like an uninvited guest, and the next he'd
turned as pale as pig lard and his legs gave way under him. He was quickly
borne away by a handful of servants, his body as still as a corpse.

The matter caused
little commotion. The duke barely looked up from the fight. Sick envoys were
obviously not a priority when the honor of Bren was at stake.

Maybor was hoping
that some enterprising courtiers had taken it into their heads to poison the
man. Either that or he'd been stricken with a fatal seizure. Indeed, seizures
seemed the order of the night. The golden-haired fighter had definitely
succumbed to some sort of attack. Strange how he recovered just after Baralis
collapsed.

Unable to keep the
smile from his face, Maybor uncapped his flask and took a hearty swig of
brandy. Yes, it was a night of rare drama and intrigue, and the show wasn't
even over yet.

The duke was not a
happy man. A muscle was pumping in his cheek and his eyes were as cold and as
dark as the Great Lake he claimed for his own. The crowd was looking to him for
a sign, a gesture, no matter how small, that would give them some indication of
how best to react. The Hawk was giving little away. He stood up and
acknowledged the red marker with the briefest of nods.

"Bring the
victor before me," he cried.

A few moments
passed. To Maybor's eyes it looked as if the young boy had to practically drag
the knight forward. Eventually the two stood before the duke. The wound on the
fighter's chest had been quickly bound. Judging from the amount of blood on his
tunic, the blade must have cut deep between the bones. The man looked sick,
almost fevered; his skin had a gray cast to it and his brow was slick with
sweat. The circles that had caused such an uproar were no longer on show. A
length of green silk covered the spot where they lay. The boy's shirt, which
was a matching color, was sporting a missing sleeve.

The crowd hushed
in anticipation. "I will ask you one question," said the duke to the
knight. "Are you free of your obligation to Valdis?"

Time slowed. The
moon shone a pale light upon the dais and the faces of five thousand people
were turned toward the knight.

"I have long
forsaken Valdis," he said. "So you count yourself a free man?"

"I do."

"Then I ask
you to take a pledge and be named as my champion."

A ripple of shock
rose from the crowd.

The knight looked
toward his second. He made a small gesture with his hand, and then said,
"I am willing to take the pledge."

As close as he was
to the duke, Maybor could not tell what he was thinking. The Hawk took a deep
breath and then spoke in a voice designed to ring the city with its echoes.

"Repeat after
me: I, Tawl of the Lowlands, do solemnly pledge to protect the duke and his
heirs with all the strength of my body and the force of my spirit until Borc
himself calls me to rest."

A minute of
silence passed and then the knight repeated the oath.

The man with
golden hair was at the center of the city. The high battlements closed about
him like the sharp teeth of a predator. He was never getting out of there.

Jack awoke. He was
confused, disorientated. An ember in the fire suddenly burst into flame. Never
had a dream seemed so vivid, so true, so tragic. Jack was overcome with a sense
of loss.

He felt alone,
abandoned, as if he'd been left to fend for himself in an uncertain world. The
golden-haired stranger had deserted him. Jack knew he would never see him in
his dreams again.

Strange, but
although the man had appeared to him only once before, he seemed to be a symbol
of something. Something fundamental and precious like hope.

Jack was cold to
the core. He drew the covers close, but how could a blanket warm the marrow of
his bones? The embers ran out of fuel. The fire petered to nothing; a dark
shell with a glint of red at its heart. There was no way of telling the time.
He might have been asleep for hours, or minutes or seconds. The kitchen was
quiet, dark except for the banking fire. Rovas slept in the larder, and Magra
and Tarissa slept in the room behind the chimney.

Jack stood up and
went over to the window. He unlatched the shutter and looked out at the night.
The sky seemed impossibly large. Stars vied with a full moon, but nothing was
as compelling as the dark. He was truly alone now. What did it mean? Why was
the man with golden hair so important? And what would happen now that he had
gone? Jack ran his hands through his hair. He'd barely had a chance to recover
from what happened yesterday, when his dreams had abducted his body, and now
this. He looked to the sky for answers, but the impartial silence of the
heavens was his only reply.

A floorboard
creaked behind him. "Jack, are you all right?" came Tarissa's voice.

He didn't turn.
"No. Something has changed. I don't know what."

"Was it
another vision?" Tarissa rested her arm upon his shoulder.

"A dream, a
vision-I don't know."

"Come and sit
down. I'll make up the fire."

She was so close
he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. Its warmth drew him in. He
was so cold and she alone could warm him. He turned toward her, following her
breath to its source. Her mouth was open as if somehow she understood what he
needed. She came to meet him. Her substance was an antidote to the vast
emptiness of space, and her warmth expelled the cold like a flame.

Lips met, skin
touched. A pull upon a strand and Tarissa's nightgown fell to the floor. Her
nakedness was a gift. The moonlight gleamed upon her flesh, but it was to the
shadows that his tongue was drawn. The exquisite dip where the throat joined
the body, the heavy underside of her breasts, and the fragrant moistness of the
hairs beneath her arm. He couldn't touch her enough. He needed to feel part of
her, to help dull his sense of loss and to be saved from the anguish of being
alone.

His urgency was so
great it drove them to a place where nothing mattered, only the wetness of
saliva and the soft edges where flesh became hollows. Tarissa made her body an
offering, sacrificing herself to the force of his need.

As soon as the
maid had left, Melli turned toward the minor and rubbed the rouge from her
face. There was no way she was going to be garnished like a dish at a banquet.

Off with the
dress, too. Ever since her brief stay with Mistress Greal, Melli had taken a
deep disliking to the color red. She didn't care a jot whether or not she
looked nice for the duke.

As she changed
back into the dress given to her by Fiscel, she checked again to see that her
knife was still in place. The hardness of the metal pleased her. The duke would
get quite a fright if he tried to come too close. Not that she had any
intention of letting matters get that far. She looked at her reflection: what
else could she do to make herself unappealing? A flash of inspiration came to
her and she spent the next ten minutes biting her nails to the quick.

It really was
getting rather late, well past midnight by her reckoning. Perhaps His Grace had
gone off the idea of feminine diversions. She hadn't heard from Bailor all day,
but the fact that he had sent a girl to tend to her appearance was a sign that
she might still be called upon despite the lateness of the hour.

There was a small
part of her that hoped the call would come. Try as she might to deny it, the
thought of a confrontation with the duke excited her. He was said to be the
most powerful man in the north. It would be interesting to see. what kind of
man lay behind the reputation. Melli scolded her imagination and deliberately
focused on a disturbing thought to punish herself. If the man was as brutal as
was rumored, then how would he react to being challenged in his own chambers
with a knife?