Master and Fool (81 page)

Tawl looked around
the camp: the knights looked back at him, their eyes bright with fierce
emotions. Did he want to take Tyren's place? He couldn't say no-part of him
still wanted to see those old dreams come true. But there were new dreams
competing with the old ones now, dreams that held power all of their own.
Tawl's thoughts turned to Melli, and as his mind conjured up an image of her
pale and lovely face, he heard Megan's voice sounding in his ears:
"It's
love, not achievement, that will rid you of your demons. "
Tawl felt a
tightening around his heart. Would he leave everything behind to keep Melli and
the baby safe? Yes. After today, yes.

He knew then that
this was no longer about ambition. He didn't want Tyren's place. He didn't want
Tyren's glory. He just wanted to believe there was goodness at the heart of it
all. Pushing the dagger blade close to Tyren's throat, he said, "I want
the knighthood to return to what it once was. I want to see men fighting for
honor, not gold."

"Honor?"
Tyren's voice was scathing. "How can a man who's shamed his circles by
cold-blooded murder talk of honor? Do not presume to preach to me, Tawl, for
your sermons are as flawed as your soul."

The knights
greeted Tyren's words with a rally of calls and encouragement. Slowly they
began to edge closer, claiming the ground around the tent.

"He murdered
no one."

Everyone turned to
look as a man rode into their midst. He was coming in from the east with the
light behind him, so his features were hard to make out. Tawl recognized his
voice at once: it was Andris. He pulled on the reins of his horse, then
dismounted. "Tawl is a man of honor," he said, moving into the half
circle, "I will swear that on my life."

A ripple of
excitement passed through the gathered crowd.

"And how
would you know?" It was the elder knight. He spoke harshly to quiet the
whispers.

"I know
because I've been with him for many weeks. I've seen him fight hard and fair
and always bravely. And I now count him my friend."

Tawl locked gazes
with Andris and then looked away. The knight had taken a grave risk riding
through the lines. If things went wrong, then everyone in the camp-Murris,

Sevri, Baird,
Keffin, Gervhay, Tawl himself, and now Andris-would end up dead. The knights
could close the circle and hack them to pieces before the troops broke through.
Tyren broke the silence. "Andris, he has fooled you. He is not a true
knight; he denounced his circles before the entire city of Bren. Come forward
and take the knife from his hand-he will give it to you."

Andris didn't
hesitate. "Tawl didn't sanction the killing of women and children in
Helch. He didn't make bargains with Kylock for gold." Wheeling around, he
turned to face the knights. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. "With
my own eyes I have seen what Kylock's army is capable of. Riding north from
Camlee, we came upon one of their campsites. The bodies of thirty women were
mutilated and thrown into a ditch to rot."

"That is not
our concern," said the elder.

"It is when
there are knights in the party." Tawl's voice carried far in the cold air
of dawn. An uneasy murmur rose up from the camp. The crowd had grown large now.
Men were putting down their weapons and making for the tent.

"Andris,"
said Tyren sharply, "this man is a liar. Take the knife from him now, or
be expelled from the knighthood for life."

No one moved.
Andris looked down at the ground. The scar on his cheek looked almost white in
the oblique morning light. Tawl released the pressure on the blade. He was
ready to give it up to Andris: he didn't want to make the knight's decision any
more difficult than it was.

Tawl knew all
about hard choices.

All the fighting
had stopped now, and the only sound was the soft and ragged hisses of three
hundred breaths. Andris moved forward. He raised his head and looked straight
at Tyren. "Would a liar survive the Faldara Falls?" A shocked murmur
rose from the crowd.

"He's lying,
too," cried Tyren to the camp. "Both of them are liars. No cheap
villain can survive the falls."

"I saw him
take them," said Mafrey, coming through the crowd.

"As I
did," said Corvis, one step behind him.

"And L"
The last voice belonged to Gervhay. The young marksman was standing on the far
edge of the circle. Tawl felt pure joy at seeing him: he had thought Gervhay
might be dead.

"Are we all
liars, then, Tyren?" asked Andris.

The knights
shifted nervously. Everyone looked to Tyren.

The muscles in
Tyren's shoulder and back contracted minutely. "These men are a disgrace
to the knighthood," he said, appealing to the crowd. "Look at how
they came here under the cover of the dawn, catching us unawares, unwilling to
fight honorably and openly on the field. And look at who leads
them"--Tyren's lip curled in a dismissive snarl--"a man who sneaked
into my tent like a burglar. Who fought me to my face and then sent henchmen
round my back. A man who talks glibly of honor when he has none of his
own."

Tyren's low and
powerful voice was building to a crescendo. "Ask this man, ask proud and
glory-hungry Tawl of the Lowlands, what he did to his family. Ask him why he
left three young children helpless without an older brother to care for them.
Ask him what happened to them while he was strutting like a peacock at Valdis.
Ask him who was responsible for their deaths. And then and
only
then,
ask him about his honor--
"

Tawl snapped. A
cold dense rage came upon him. Tyren's words stung like salt in an open wound.
He had to stop them coming. Tears blurred his vision as he dropped the knife to
Tyren's chest. He felt Tyren pull against him, but Tawl had hold of his hands
and wouldn't let him go. Knights in the crowd were ghosts on the periphery-they
didn't matter. All Tawl knew was pain, and all he wanted was for the feeling to
end. He tilted the edge of his blade to an angle for cutting and pressed it
into Tyren's flesh.

Just as he sliced
the knife across his chest, Tyren jerked backward. Tawl, mad with fury, hardly
aware of what he was doing, pushed against the man's bindings, sending Tyren
staggering forward onto the blade. Tyren's own body weight carried the knife
far deeper than Tawl intended. The blade had been wielded to cause a flesh
wound-nothing more--but Tyren fell upon it, and the blade-tip slipped through
his ribs and into his heart.

Stunned gasps
escaped from the lips of every knight. Tawl stepped back. He released his hold
on Tyren's hands, and the leader of the knights stumbled forward, falling on
his side. Blood gushed from the wound. A trickle ran down his neck. His chest
heaved quickly as he struggled for air, and his entire body convulsed in sudden
spasms. Looking up at Tawl, Tyren's mouth formed a slow grin. "You are
just as worthless as your father."

Shaking,
disorientated, reeling in the wake of strong emotions, it took Tawl a moment to
comprehend Tyren's words.
His father?
How could Tyren possibly know his
father? It didn't make any sense. "What do you know of my father?" he
said.

"I know he
can be bought for fifty pieces of gold."

No, mouthed Tawl.
NO!

He felt himself
shift out of his body. The world began to whiten and turn. A sickness, like a
fever, took his mind upward then backward to the past. He remembered the sun on
his back the day he met Tyren. The questions on Tyren's
lips: "What
about your father? Is he dead, too?"

"No. We
don't see him very often. He spends his days drinking in Lanholt. "

Tawl saw the scene
as clearly as if he were there, as vivid as a morning after rain. And this time
he saw things he'd never noticed before: the quick, darting look in Tyren's
eyes, his lips moving twice as he repeated the word
Lanholt
back to
himself. The image blasted into shards of whiteness, revealing yet another
scene beneath. The cottage by the marsh four days later; the fire burning low,
Anna, Sara, and the baby crowding around the figure of their father, squealing
with excitement as gifts emerged from a sack.

"Gambling,
carding, call it what you will. Luck kissed me, then made me her lover. I won a
small fortune. And I'll be putting it to good use. "

"How?"

"I've come
home to stay. There's
no
need for you to do everything anymore, Tawl.
I'll be head of the family from
now
on. "

The action played
itself out one beat slower than real time. Tawl was both observer and player in
one. Details caught his eye like flashing jewels: his father refusing to meet
his gaze, the time--midmorning, when his father never rose before noonand gold.
Gold in his father's hands. The gaming tables in Lanholt never allowed stakes
any higher than silver.

Just as quickly as
the scene emerged, it shifted sideways and a third snapped into place. The
Bulrush at Greyving. An hour past midnight, Tyren woken by the innkeeper to
greet an unexpected guest. Tawl watched him descend the stairs. His face showed
no surprise.

"I'm free
to come with you to Valdis, "
said Tawl. "My
obligation has
been taken away. "

Tyren smiled and
nodded, ordered food and drink, but he never once asked why.

Tawl felt as if
his past had been wiped out and been replaced by something new and monstrous.
Nothing was as it seemed. The shock was so great it brought him to his knees.
Physically sick, a wave of nausea flared up from his gut, contaminating his
body with its rancid acid-bum. He bit on his tongue to keep it down.

Anna and Sara and
the baby. All dead, but no longer resting the same. Their deaths-his private
torment, the thorns in his heart and the demons on his back-had been turned
inside out. Everything had been tainted. Right from the start, right from the
very moment he'd met Tyren on the south road, there had been one foul he at the
center of his life. Tyren had made him a monster.

Hardly aware of
what he was doing, drunk with sickness and tormented by pain, Tawl took the
dying man in his arms and shook him. "You paid my father to look after my
sisters. You knew I would never have gone with you to Valdis unless my sisters
were taken care of, so you paid him to take my place."

Tyren was weak,
his chest barely moving, his eyes slow to focus. A lazy smile graced lips red
with blood. "Didn't do such a good job, did he?"

The air was filled
with the sound of flapping wings. Each whip of leathered scales drove Tawl
closer to madness. The demons were on his back. Bringing up his knife, he began
to stab Tyren. Over and over again, the knife came down, thrust through ribs,
collarbone, heart, and lungs. Tawl couldn't stop. It was the only way to save
himself. The only way to shut out the terrible, searing pain.

Then, as Tyren's
torso became a bloody pulp, Tawl felt something pass through him. A thin
exhalation of breath flitted through his body like air through gauze. It didn't
pass through Tyren. It gathered about him, whirling and solidifying, and
changing his bloody features into a mask.

Tawl dropped the
knife.

The demon was no
longer on his back; it had merged with Tyren's corpse. Tyren was the demon, and
had always been the demon, and that was what the green waters of Lake Ormon had
tried to show him.

Tawl looked up.
The eyes of three hundred men were upon him. No one spoke.

He felt so tired.
Empty of every emotion except the grief of losing his sisters. It was as if
they had died againhere, today, by Tyren's hand. As he raised himself to one
knee and began to clean his blade on his tunic, a cry came up from the crowd:

"Tawl for
leader!"
It was Andris. He called a second time and Gervhay, Mafrey,
and Corvis joined in.

Tawl shook his
head. He couldn't speak. Not now.
"Tawl for leader!"
More took
up the cry the third time, and the voices doubled on the fourth.

Tawl couldn't bear
it. All he wanted was to be left alone to grieve. Still shaking his head, he
stood up. Weak from head to foot, his knees almost buckled beneath him. Baird
came forward and loaned him a hand, and Tawl was glad to take it. Without a
word passing between the two, Baird guided him toward Tyren's tent.

"Tawl for
leader!"
A full third of the knights had now joined in the chant.

Baird lifted the
tent flap open, and Tawl stepped into the shaded warmth. Almost at once, his
legs gave way beneath him. He fell onto Tyren's pallet, closing his eyes as he
brought his head to rest.

"Tawl for
leader. "

He didn't want to
hear it, didn't want to think about it. In his mind he saw only his sisters:
Sara, golden hair bouncing as she followed him down to the waterhole; Anna,
grinning her wicked grin as she tried to goad him into a fight; and the baby,
lips quivering, cheeks flaming, as it worked itself into a tantrum over being
left too long in the cot. Tawl smiled. It seemed just like yesterday.

Jack opened his
eyes. He was enveloped by a white cocoon. It stretched out in every direction,
brushing softly against his lashes and his nose. Jack thought he might have
been in heaven if it hadn't been for the smell. Somehow, he'd never imagined
the afterlife as smelling of musty linen. Could be wrong, though. Trying a
quick upward movement with his hand, the whiteness grew taut across his face.
The coarse nap of cheap linen brushed against his lips. Sticking out his
tongue, he ran the tip along the surface. Lye and old mold. No, this was no
afterlife, this was a poorly laundered sheet.

Grabbing the
fabric in his fists, he yanked it away from his face. Cool air, dim light, and
the strong smell of woodsmoke met his senses. Noises, too. A grating metal
noise, like a shovel on stone, and the crackle and sputter of a well-stoked
fire. Strange how he'd never heard them before. The ceiling was oddly familiar:
low and barreled with elaborately carved braces. He was sure he'd seen it
recently. A movement to the far left caught his eye. A dark figure moved across
the glowing orange light source. Jack lifted his head to see it better. The
movement took a lot more effort than he'd planned; surely his head wasn't
normally this heavy? His senses had a minor blackout for a moment-a sort of
dark, spiraling sensation like being spun around in a blindfold-and by the time
his eyesight had returned to normal, the figure had moved to the side of the
light.