Myla By Moonlight (6 page)

His hand behind his back, he motioned with three fingers and three men including Bryton approached. Taric nodded his head to Nimon with forced regal snobbery and stiffened. “Your father chose not to greet me himself although he was well aware of my arrival? I shall assume he is frail and near death to insult my father so.”

“Frail? No, he—that is— Forgive us, Prince Taric, we meant no insult.” After faltering, Nimon’s beady eyes hardened. “Rest assured, Delmas Luta is hale and well able to defend what is his.”

“His by Balic’s grace,” Taric reminded him with chilling disdain. “But my father and I are always pleased to learn of the hearty health of those beneath us. Lead on, Luta the Younger. I have adult matters to discuss with your hale and healthy father.”

“We at Castle Claverham bid you welcome. I think you’ll find your stay with us most enlightening.” The oily gleam in the younger man’s eyes set Taric’s teeth on edge and he hung back among his men until all of Luta’s crew had turned.

“Bry, this doesn’t feel right.” Every instinct in his soul sang with caution. “Something is brewing here. We need to let Papa know.”

“I hear you and already did it,” Bryton murmured. “I sent Henic back with word of this…shit. It reeks like a chamber pot. I’m not playing games with turd boy or his father. If we don’t return in the allotted three days, all of Thistlemount’s forces will be here by nightfall on the fourth. Luta knows better than to provoke the king’s wrath.”

“Papa’s wrath isn’t my fear,” Taric whispered, edging Falcon forward. “It’s his tears. No amount of weaponry can raise the dead. This whole day smells of disaster in the making. It’s too risky. Hold your men outside the gates.”

Bryton’s eyes bugged and he reached for Falcon’s reins. “What? No! You’re not going in there alone. Balic’ll have my ass on a spit if you get one scratch, and you’re walking into a thorn bush. I’d rather just turn around and say ‘screw it’.”

The two mounts jostled for control, stirring up dust in a pale thick cloud. Taric whipped the leather from his friend’s hand.

“Calm your ass down and listen to me,” Taric spat. “We need this peace treaty. The southland border is too unstable. Luta lets whoever pays the most cross his land. I have to go and make him see reason, even if it costs more than my weight in gold. We stay one night, that’s all. But I want all the men outside the gate, Bry. All the men, except you. You go with me.”

“That makes no sense. You’re leaving yourself open to who knows what, with no one but me to watch your back. I’m good but I’m not that good. You might have only eleven men here but eleven are better than one.”

“Not in a tight spot. Think chess and strategy and plot it out. What we have are ten pawns, a rook and a bishop. But this bishop carries his own hidden queen. I’d pit the rook, bishop and almighty queen against any hale and hearty dog turd any day. Luta has something up his sleeve and I don’t want to be worried about him holding my men for collateral. You and I stick together and Myla never leaves me.”

“Yeah, well—” Bryton grudgingly accepted his orders but shot a steely glare at his prince, “—make sure your bishop is near this rook’s ass so the queen can cover us both with her magic skirt.”

Tensions raised, the half-platoon caught up to and followed Luta’s guards to the gate. Claverham stood as a reverse of Thistlemount in construction. Luta’s abode was dark and dreary, its outer walls neither whitewashed nor polished. The towers flanking the squat, square main hall stretched too high, too wide, like beefy arms jutting from a too-thin chest. Along the bailey wall, grizzled guards glared with contempt and shifted gleaming weapons to easier reach.

Taric sent his captain a measured glance and drew a fortifying breath. Bryton lifted his arm, gave the order to stand down and make camp outside the castle walls. Despite the uncertain looks, not one man balked at the strange command. Alone, Taric and Bryton clopped over the wooden bridge and rode beneath the spiny teeth of the portcullis.

Delmas Luta was as round as he was tall. His greasy bald head shone in the late afternoon sun, highlighting his fish-like eyes. Standing on the steps outside Claverham Castle, his skinny whelp of a son behind him, he ran fleshy fingers up and down his tunic front in greedy expectation.

Taric dismounted and took his time arranging the deep blue waist sash bearing the Crest of Eldwyn around the Segur family sword. His dress sword was more show than protection. The carved designs were ornamental but would not halt a forceful blade. Each beat of his heart had him scanning another nook and cranny of the courtyard. Unease skittered across his skin like lice, tickling and nibbling with gluttonous appetite.

Something is off.
The blacksmith’s hut stood silent although smoke billowed to the sky. No noise came from the butcher’s shed and no women lingered about the well. The only visible presence were soldiers, everywhere, every one studying the two lone men. Too many soldiers for one small castle, and Taric noted the deep green of several military tunics. Suspicion bloomed like a blood red rose. Neither he nor Bryton removed their hand from their sword hilts, climbing the stairs side by side.

“Greetings, Prince Taric Segur of Eldwyn, welcome to Castle Claverham. I believe you are well acquainted with my other guest.” The wet, bald head nodded to the left and Taric’s blood thickened. “Emerto Marchen.”

Bryton leaned to the side a fraction and spoke without moving his lips. “Hey Tar, I think that move is called
check
.”

Chapter Three

“But not checkmate,” Taric whispered before smiling widely at the rotund host and his guest. “I know Emerto quite well. Good day, sir. How is Elora? The last correspondence we had was several weeks past.”

Tall and dark, with a thick swath of salt-and-peppered hair, his enemy grinned with serpentine eyes. A deep olive tunic fronted with gold swirls lent his gaze a mesmerizing glow. “My daughter is well. She asked that I relay her greetings to you. It seems you’ve been somewhat remiss in your attentions of late.”

The inside of Taric’s lip spilled blood as he bit down but his smile never left his face. “Please extend my apologies. My father’s had a great deal of use for me lately and much of my own time is spoken for. It’s a pity she couldn’t accompany you here. I would have liked to…make her…acquaintance again. She is quite lovely.”

Marchen’s eyes narrowed and Taric allowed his lip to curl a bit more roguishly than was proper. Delmas made a grand production of leading the men inside a dark great hall. He was careful to not choose one over the other, seating one at his right and the other at his left when custom should have seated Taric in the center.

Bryton elected not to be seated at all, instead standing behind Taric, arms crossed, weapon at the ready. To him, wartime rules applied. Even here in this middle ground of disquieted truce, Bryton would not sup with the enemy.

The carved chair Taric shifted on creaked with age. Hunting dogs gnawed cracking bones and scratched fleas at one end of the great room while mice scurried at the other. A musty odor from the rotting rushes and stale bodies polluted the air and caused his nose to itch. The massive hearth was stained and filthy with ashes scraped to the side in a great pile. Elaborate but dingy tapestries hung heavily, in need of a good beating to brighten the vividly depicted scenes. Luta needed to dip into his protected coffers and spend some coin to preserve his keep before it lapsed into decay. He would rather store it, gathering it like a too-greedy squirrel hoards nuts for winter. But the excess would rot and the decay had already begun in this hall.

“I trust Balic is well.” Marchen’s cordiality cracked with thinly hidden disdain.

“Very. He remarried this past winter. I assure you, he’s quite in his prime.” Taric waved away a serving girl and leaned deeper into his chair, determined to uncover the reason for this surprise visit. “I’m astonished to find you so far north this time of the season, Emerto. Isn’t this a busy time for the Sotherby fleet?”

Attractive in an evil, near-demonic way, Marchen grinned while taking a pastry from the serving girl’s tray. The white sugar coated his fingertips and he wiped each one on a pristine cloth before facing Taric. “Yes, but I have faith in my son, like your father, I’m sure, does in his. I do get the impression, however, that Balic didn’t know of my invitation or he might’ve come today himself rather than send his child.”

He tossed the word “child” out as if Taric were three summers rather than ten times that but Taric refused to flinch. “I am Eldwyn’s military leader and have been for a number of summers. King Balic does not bother himself with trivial matters like this meeting. My presence here is far more than enough to settle such bothersome details. Foreknowledge of your invitation would have been…polite, but would not have brought my father here. However, neither of us knew Luta had invited you to join in this discussion.”

“Well, as I see it—” Delmas shoved the last bite of cream-puffed dough in his jowl and smacked his coated lips, “—I have the most to lose or benefit from hearing what each side has to say. I mean, I’m not warring with either of you and yet my lands keep getting burned and I lose money no matter who wins. The more I lose, the more difficult it is to pay the stewardship rights to the Eldwyn Treasury. So why not put all our cards on the table, gentleman, and see who has what to offer me?”

“Delmas, you’re a greedy pig.” Marchen laughed with devilish abandon. “Less than ten minutes in your door and already you have your hand out. Not ready to formally break from the security of Eldwyn Kingdom, you still look for ways to escape paying your promised tithe. No, I think I’d like to enjoy your hospitality for a while before I bring my…offer to the table. What do you say, Prince Taric?”

Taric ran his finger with deliberate slowness around the rim of his untasted wine goblet. Twenty-three laps around the circumference had Luta sweating and Marchen’s jaw white with gritted teeth. “Agreed. It would be very impolite to jump straight into discussions of…offers.”

Within the hour, Taric was escorted to the west tower, Bryton close on his heels. No doubt Marchen was in the east tower since Luta seemed determined to keep on both men’s good sides. Unfortunately for him, Taric had never considered him there in the first place. Bryton refused a room, standing inside Taric’s open door with arms still crossed. The elderly servant seemed lost when Bryton would not be taken to a separate room. His bodyguard stood silent and brooding until prodded to move once more. Then he bared his teeth and hissed at the old man, who scurried away like a mouse before a hungry cat.

Bryton closed the door behind him and faced his friend. “We’re screwed.”

“What makes you say that?” Taric laughed, stretching out on the bed.

“Oh, I don’t know. Your enemy is across the castle way, your men are outside the walls and Luta smells like a hog’s ass. Add that with your bad mood and my saddle sores and life is just grand.” Bryton kicked his boot off, sat with a groan and rubbed his long toes. “And I need new boots.”

“Whine, whine whine,” Taric chided. “You need to open your mind up. I have to find a weakness in Marchen and maybe now I can. Luta may be greedy, and smelly, but he isn’t a fool. He hasn’t formed an alliance with Marchen yet. And killing me outright would place him square in Papa’s sights and he won’t risk that. It would cut into his profit too much.”

“Forgive me for not giving a shit about cutting into his profit. It’s my own flesh—which I’m very fond of, by the way—I worry about. Did you have to goad Marchen about his daughter? Damn, Tar, are you trying to piss him off?”

“No, just make him second-guess everything. It worked. Besides, Elora is beautiful but she jumps at mouse farts. He scares her too much for her ever to consider behaving any way but prim, proper and virginal.”

“One of these days, your flirting is going to get you in trouble and take my ass with you. Why can’t you stick with barmaids like the rest of us?”

Head shaking, Taric closed his eyes and examined the day’s developments. There had to be a reason Marchen wanted to extend the talks. What could he be after now? Discerning the motives might be impossible. Marchen acted impulsively and with malice but with no real agenda. He didn’t battle for any specific port or pasture, vault or valuable. Predicting his course on a map was like guessing where a cow would drop its dung.

A thump hit Taric’s stomach and he curled upward in shock. Bryton’s boot, thrown from the chair, smelled of wet leather and feet. Taric wrinkled his nose and pitched the shoe back.

Bryton caught it and fixed him with a piercing look. “You want to tell me now what has you so grouchy?”

“No.” Terse, Taric closed his eyes and folded his hands behind his head. The silence in the room gathered weight until it pressed down on him like an ox. Bryton was brooding. “Let it go. I’m fine.”

“You’re a lit torch in a room full of oil. If you get any more tense, you’re going to mess up and someone’s going to die. I’d prefer it not be me. Talk, Prince Cantankerous.”

His captain’s words stewed like potatoes in Taric’s belly until they sapped every bit of angry broth from his gut. Sighing in resignation, he gave in. “I kissed Myla.”

“What? After that whole ‘she’s not a tavern whore to be ogled’ shit, you kissed her?” His captain’s mouth hung open like a cellar door. Snapping it back in place, he melted into the chair and grinned. “Was it good?”

“You could say that. Except the part where she pushed me away and told me she wasn’t made for my pleasure.”

“Ye-ouch.” Grimacing, Bryton shook his head. “Probably just as well. I mean, she’s a stunning woman, Tar, but she lives in a scar on your side. That isn’t exactly normal. It’s kind of creepy, really. Isn’t she like a part of you? So it was kind of like kissing your liver or something.”

Disgust filled him and he rose to sit on the bed. “Bry, shut up. It wasn’t like that. It isn’t like that at all. I can’t get her out of my head.” Seeing Bryton’s mouth open, Taric cut him off. “And no, it’s not the same thing as when she’s asleep inside. It’s different.”

The room he’d been given was over-decorated with tapestries, velvet fabrics and iconic emblems. It closed in around him, choking the breath from his lungs until he leapt from the bed and threw open the shutters. The humid air rushed in, bringing the scent of boiled meats and horses. He leaned on the stone and stared up at the downy clouds dotting the darkening sky.

“Something happened when I saw her bleeding. I started thinking about how I would live without her and I can’t imagine it. You should’ve seen her eat dinner that night. Every bite was a new experience for her, a new taste or texture. It was like watching magic come alive before my eyes. Here is this…
being
whose sole purpose is to keep me safe but she’d never tasted a strawberry. In one night, she had more ideas and opinions on how to succeed in battle than my top military commanders offer in a month. But she didn’t even know you were flirting. How can one person be that innocent and yet that deadly, that cunning?

“Myla spends every minute of every day with me but I don’t know how to read her. And blackberries…I never saw anyone melt at a taste before. She’s amazing. I thought…I do think she has some feelings for me other than responsibility. She kissed me back before she pushed me away. You and I both know she could have destroyed me with a tap but she…she looked frightened. She just left me standing there with flowers and bees and questions I can’t answer.”

“Taric, open your shirt.”

At Bryton’s command, Taric turned from the window with a puzzled slant scoring his forehead. “What?”

The captain’s pale face looked drawn and panicked but his voice was that of a commander. “Open your shirt.”

Obeying without reason, Taric bared his chest to his friend’s bright blue eyes.

Bryton sagged in relief and blew out a noisy breath. “I was afraid you’d been marked.”

Taric snorted and dropped his shoulders. “You don’t really believe all that shit, do you? About the Segur bonding marks? Come on, Bry. It’s all legend, stories made up for weddings and romantic poems. It doesn’t exist.”

“You ever seen Balic without a shirt, Tar? He has one.”

“My father has a scar on his chest from a knife wound or something. It’s man-made, not mystical.”

“Why can’t you believe in it? If anybody should, it’s you. You have a guardian maiden who lives in a burn and turns into a cat. Your mother, who created her out of who knows what, was our time’s greatest sorceress. Your entire family tree is filled with people who never had kids because their heartmates were never found or died. After swallowing all that, why is a little love mark so hard to fathom?”

The question plagued Taric all evening. Instead of focusing on matters of state his mind swirled with blackberry kisses and eyes of gold-green sparkling in the sunlight. Why was the mythical love brand that supposedly appeared on the men of his bloodline so hard to conceive?

Standing at the bottom of the grand stairwell, dressed in his best courtly fashion, Taric had a brief moment of clarity. If he chose to believe in the mark, the mystical physical manifestation of his life bond with one woman, his future was sealed. He would never love another as long as he lived. That mark, the single thick line that would appear above his heart, meant his destiny was preset. Segur men only loved once a lifetime, could only give a child to one woman. He wasn’t ready to commit to any woman at this minute, not while a threat hung over his people like a storm cloud.

“You’re far too young to have your mind wander, Prince Taric.”

The voice behind him slithered down his spine in chills and prickles. Emerto Marchen was a snake in human form intent on wreaking havoc and bloodshed on the people of Eldwyn.
Why, you miserable bastard, what’s your reason? What’s your weakness?
Back straightened, Taric plastered the diplomatically bland expression on his face before turning. “Younger than you, perhaps, but not wet behind the ears, Emerto.”

Step by step with slow grace, the butcher of his people drew closer and the air grew heavier with scarcely veiled malevolence. Marchen’s gaze raked over him, leaving a film of discomfort and disgust no water could wash away.

“You are your father’s son, no doubt. I wonder, is there much of your dead mother in your soul, Taric? What of her magic? Did you inherit even the smallest bit of her talents? Or has Balic molded you in his every likeness? You have his look, not even your eyes are that of your mother. A pity, I always found Tarsha’s eyes the loveliest shade of evergreen.”

“You knew my mother?” Taric couldn’t help the surprised lilt in his tone and the evil glint in the older man’s eyes increased.

“Very well. Tarsha and I…grew up together. We were…quite close. Close indeed. She was…enchanting and beautiful. We spent a great deal of time together, she and I. Didn’t Balic ever tell you that? Hmm, perhaps you’re not as informed as you believe, young Segur. Ask him. See if Balic tells you the tale of how he took Tarsha from…her home to be his bride. And then, maybe one day, I’ll tell you the truth. Or not.”