Stormed Fortress (59 page)

Which curt dismissal saddled his foremost commander of armies with a courier
'
s ride to shatter the sternest endurance. Sulfin Evend dropped to his knees, swiped off the crumpled silk coverlet, and loosed the cinched belt that clamped his liege
'
s now-bloodless limbs.
'
You were attacked,
'
he said under his urgent breath.
'
Koriathain will strike at you again. My absence does nothing but weaken you.
'

'
I was assaulted,
'
Lysaer corrected, imperious.
'
A pity.
'
He rubbed his grooved skin, then unexpectedly smiled. His sunny humour was all too collected and sane, with his gashed scalp streaking ribbons across his fair skin.
'
You
'
ll accomplish my bidding at diligent speed, if only to make your hot-foot return to bolster my threadbare precautions.
'

'
I tell you, the Prime Matriarch weaves a new plot. She will not stay her hand!
'
Neck muscles bunched, all but choked by fear, Sulfin Evend shuddered under the tug of his instincts.
'
Your uneasy dreams are not sown by your nemesis!
'
Before the insidious threat of the curse, he reasoned his point with more tact.
'
You
'
ve reviewed my patrols. Crack troops and priest sensitives have done their exemplary work. No skulking sorcerer has slipped past our guard and entered the s
'
Brydion citadel.
'

'
You can
'
t swear to that claim,
'
Lysaer pointed out, serene in his mantle of bed-clothes.

Sulfin Evend stifled his scathing protest. Clammy sweat soaked his shirt. One wrong word might re-spark the volatile tension. He could
never
divulge his convincing rebuttal: the memory, stark as a branding in daylight, of Arithon
'
s promise sworn at Sanpashir. The half-brother cursed as enemy was prodigally gifted, but not murderous by nature, or criminal.

'
Lysaer, I beg you! Don
'
t risk this, alone.
'
Against his stiff grain, Sulfin Evend pleaded to turn the cold wind of disaster.
'
Throw me in lock-up. Leave the key in the care of your honourable valet. Dharkaron
'
s fell vengeance, clap me in irons, but don
'
t strip yourself of my watch. Not when arcane means might twist a fell snare to make you a Koriani puppet.
'

But the glaring mistake could not be unmade. A subordinate had been caught raising a hand against the divine spirit made flesh. Angry followers would turn on the offending target. Rumour and outcry could raise a deadly recoil, and on that, Lysaer
'
s ruler
'
s perception was matchless.
'
You have left me no choice, friend.
'
He stood with regret, accepted the valet
'
s ministrations, and let the gold-and-white mantle settle over his shoulders.
'
I cannot waive the apparent offence. Go, and my bristling dog-pack can be tongue-lashed and leashed, and yanked back to fawning heel. Stay, and you
'
re asking to get a cur
'
s stab in the back, by a rival.
'

Late Autumn 5671

Second Audience

Mearn
'
s supposition concerning his brother
'
s intentions proved to be disastrously wrong. No formal assize was called, for the morning. After spending the night in a windowless cell, trussed and shouting herself hoarse, Jeynsa was hauled into Duke Bransian
'
s presence with a sack tied over her head. Even bound wrist and ankle, her struggles tested the strength of two muscular guardsmen. After dragging her out of the dungeon, and into the stuffy clerk
'
s chamber used to take prisoners
'
statements, both soldiers had bleeding fingers. The larger one limped from a kicked shin.

'
She bites!
'
the burly captain exclaimed. Unscorched by Liesse
'
s horrified censure, he dealt his charge a jarring, hard shake and shoved her before the oak table.
'
Clamps her damned jaws till she
'
s scored to the bone, fast as a murdering weasel!
'

The girl kept up her crazed scuffling, even then. The men-at-arms had to strap her into a chair before anyone dared to loose the draw-string that fastened the muffling burlap. The cloth was yanked off. Underneath, her flushed face was tear-stained and grazed, and her cropped walnut hair, spiked to cowlicks. The lad
'
s clothing worn to mix yesterday
'
s mortar now had dried blood-stains flecked over the lye. If appearance suggested a hysterical child, rumpled after a tantrum, Jeynsa
'
s opening salvo held withering irony.
'
My liege turned his back on this town, once before. Had I the same foresight, I should have trampled your ducal standard into the midden!
'

The same brute whose sword thrust had undone Sidir clouted her with his mailed fist.
'
Mind your tongue, girl! You think you
'
ve seen trouble? Things could get worse.
'

The blow left her dizzy. Her lip split and one cheekbone skinned, Jeynsa granted his snarling less regard than a yapping lap-dog.

The room where they held her was still belowground, though the stonewalls were whitewashed. The stout furnishing underneath her had shackle-bolts for felons. Although the claw-footed table confronting her contained a rolled document, quill pen, and ink, no lawful tribunal filled the bench seats. Instead of Alestron
'
s hound-faced justiciar, Duke Bransian stood with crossed arms in his war-time mail and field surcoat. He looked red in the eyes, even hag-ridden, as he rocked on his toes with feral impatience. Shadowed by his taut bulk, Liesse showed calm distance, perched strait-laced atop the state dais. Her lush hair was pinned, brown coils piled above a cinnamon gown and a necklet of rubies. Beyond the ranked guardsmen, stationed behind, the only other official at hand was Alestron
'
s high chancellor, hen-pecked and grey, with his knobby, scrubbed hands folded into the lap of his floor-length black robe.

Jeynsa had only bravado to set against their predacious regard. She protested, though helpless pain and raw grief threatened to drain the heart out of her.
'
You claim to live by the old law sanctions. Then where are my rights?
'

'
This is not about honour,
'
Liesse declared, across Bransian
'
s bellow for silence.
'
Not justice, or fairness to you, on whatever count of mishandling. You are here only for the direct expediency of keeping Alestron
'
s citizens alive and defended.
'

Jeynsa raised her bruised chin. Eyes narrowed, she spat.
'
The charge I would broach is criminal murder.
'

Duke Bransian braced his huge fists on the table, which jostled the clerkly contents.
'
You dare say to me that one fallen man is worth all the lives under my seal of office! Wives, craftsfolk, children, and babes? Should your swordsman, who died on his feet in a fight, matter more than a town under threat of invasion?
'

'
Name Sidir!
'
Jeynsa challenged.
'
He was a free-wilds clansman, and nobody
'
s bondsman assigned for demeaning protection.
'
Despite fury and effort, the fear in her showed: she could not stop trembling.

Liesse tapped the trestle with a censuring finger, dark eyes also beyond regret.
'
Could you hold his life above ten thousand families, doomed to suffer a famine? Does his fate outweigh the rapine and pillage that the heel of a conquering war host will bring us? A sword thrust is quick. Have you ever watched a child die of starvation? A young woman forced till she
'
s haemorrhaged?
'

'
Yes!
'
Jeynsa shouted.
'
I
'
ve seen infants perish of starvation and cold, and all manner of forced brutality, done by head-hunters. You forget. I was never brought up in a palace.
'
Afraid, not yet panicked, she glowered at the duke, who now paced like an irritable bear.
'
I don
'
t see what any of this has to do with a breach of guest welcome, or assault and an unprovoked act of butchery.
'

Bransian met her spitting fury with frosty eyes and a curt nod to his chancellor.
'
We are hard, but not foolish.
'

The fussy official stirred out of furled quiet, slipped the ribbon from the scroll, and twitched a state document across the table.

'
Read,
'
snapped the duke.
'
Then sign your name here, before witnesses. Do that, and you walk out of here, safe. Your crown prince won
'
t be forced to defend your hysterical story, or answer a case with no witnesses. You can end this, now, quietly. Or have the same verdict dragged out in sordid detail through the shame of a hearing in public ceremony.
'

Jeynsa clamped her jaw. Scanned the offered reprieve, while the last vestige of colour drained out of her freckled face. Before she completed the offensive last lines, she glanced up, breathing quickly.
'
Lies!
'
she gasped.
'
Vicious slander on top of vile extortion. Smear Sidir
'
s faultless service by a false claim that he moved out of hand, and
attacked your guardsmen without provocation?
'

'
A
dead man
'
s good name,
'
Liesse stated, prim. "The liegeman
'
s past suffering any dishonour. Give us your word. That
'
s a painless exchange for Prince Arithon
'
s debt, that could spare every innocent life in this citadel.
'

Jeynsa shook her head, speechless.

'
Is your stiff neck worth so much?
'
The chancellor leaned forward with overbearing impatience.
'
How can you not act for the greater good? Are you spineless? Why not use the power that
'
s yours to save others, hand-picked as you are for an office that can bind the will of a sovereign king? The blood of sacrifice here has already been paid! Don
'
t make Sidir
'
s loss be in vain. Not when your sensibility, and his reputation, might buy many thousands their future survival.
'

Which pressure threw too harsh a weight upon Jeynsa
'
s uncertain young shoulders.
'
The choice you place on me is not mine to make!
'

'
Don
'
t be a braying ass!
'
Bransian hurled his state chair aside. He loomed over the table, the nights of sleepless rage and balked weeks of inaction smoking off his ox frame.
'
None of us can afford to choke over principle! Not with Alestron
'
s domain being pillaged by Lysaer
'
s dog-packs of fanatics!
'
His flicked gesture summoned.

One of the paired guardsmen approached Jeynsa
'
s chair. Steel rasped as he unsheathed his sword and cut the lashed binding, which freed her right hand for the pen.

'
Sign, girl!
'
the duke snapped.
'
I
'
m griped from watching you preach on your backside. No one
'
s got time for your quibbling.
'

Her pale green eyes spilled her furious tears. Still, Jeynsa battled her ebbing composure. Left only the grit of her ancestry, she argued: as Asandir
'
s choice for Rathain
'
s
caithdein,
charged to stand at the right hand of princes with no shield but bare flesh and her conscience.
'
You won
'
t change his Grace
'
s stance in this way! Or deliver your people from jeopardy. Not by asking me to endorse your misrule through hiding betrayal and murder.
'

'
Pretty words. Empty threats. You
'
ve no leverage to bargain!
'
Bransian stared her down, beyond quarter.
'
Realize how little your breathing life means! You and your crown prince together are not worth the horrific burden of suffering, if the unholy Alliance keeps us besieged through the winter.
'

The chancellor regarded his knuckles, distressed, while Liesse pressed her ringed hands to her lips, quick enough to stifle her outcry as the poised guardsman was beckoned to move. Fast as the whirlwind spun out of control, past a line that had long since been crossed, the man-at-arms laid the chill edge of his blade against the tendons of the Teiren s
'
Valerient
'
s other, strapped wrist.

'
Sign your name, Jeynsa!
'
Overpowering within the stifling, shut room, Bransian bored in, beyond mercy.
'
Or find out how dying can be made to hurt. Your corpse can as easily fall with Sidir
'
s, cashiered as evidence to set your prince under mandate. Alive or not, you will serve as my proof that Rathain
'
s delegation spurned guest oath and turned weapons against us.
'

'
Where are your witnesses?
'
the chancellor pressed.
'
You can
'
t escape harm, except by your signature. After all, Sidir
'
s body will be found in your chamber, with the slaughter of three liveried guardsmen. Your dagger, I
'
m told, left a crippling stroke. The man with your blood on his blade will be cleared upon grounds that you resisted his lawful arrest.
'

"Then be my witness, now!
'
Jeynsa seized the pen. She hooked the cut-glass well of ink that awaited beside the draughted parchment. Fear spoiled her fierceness. But never her nerve, that had been her sire
'
s and grandsire
'
s before her, as she dipped the quill nib.
'
Your methods are dirty,
'
she pronounced in rife scorn.
'
Nastier than anything I
'
ve ever seen from the slinking ranks of town head-hunters.
'

Quaking and pale, she met the eyes of the duchess, but found Liesse turned beyond sane appeal and hardened to stone by weak character.

"This, for Sidir
'
s memory? I should be ashamed.
'
Jeynsa snapped the poised quill, then back-handed the uncorked ink-well.

The flung contents flooded the offending document. Spatters sullied Alestron
'
s bull blazon, on the breast of the duke
'
s scarlet surcoat.

Bransian roared. His swordsman lifted his weapon and swung. Jeynsa snatched the split second. As the blade was upraised, she rammed her freed hand to the table edge and shoved with all of her panicked strength. The oak chair overbalanced, and toppled. Her strapped frame was borne over backwards. The heavy, carved finials clouted into the guardsman, who stumbled, his flailing sword stroke gone wild. The blade hissed downwards, sliced through her trousers and hose, and bit into her calf.