Two Heirs (The Marmoros Trilogy Book 1) (39 page)

He sat down on the grass to think as the two runners departed at speed.

“Lord David,”
said a voice in his head that he recognised at once.

“Suzanne. Where are you?”

“The Navy sent one of His Imperial Majesty’s corvettes in support, my lord. I’m aboard the Cleopatra; you remember Lieutenant Commander Boronin?”

“Mikael. He’s here? I trust he’s taking good care of you.”

“He is making me most… comfortable, my lord.”

“Hm, good. I take it that you were listening in on that last conversation.”

“I apologise for the intrusion, my lord but yes. Khan thought that a situation like this might occur and he has come up with something that may help. We had to tell him about the sword, of course. It shouldn’t be down there but, since it is, he thinks we may be able to turn it to our advantage.”

Suzanne quickly outlined the shape of Khan’s plan.

“Khan really thinks that will work?”
David asked in astonishment.

“Yes. If you present it as a powerful piece of magic. And Khan says it’s been done before, very successfully, by one of his predecessors. Many years ago on a planet called Sol 3.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“We need to make some adjustment to the sword to tune it to Prince Jeren. About three thousand paces due north of that little hill where you are now, there’s a clearing with a standing stone in the centre. Leave the sword there today before nightfall, along with a lock of Prince Jeren’s hair. We will leave the sword somewhere obvious for you to find in the morning. Oh and take your broken katana with you. We’ve managed to find you a replacement and it will be waiting for you in the clearing.”

“All right. I can arrange that. I will also leave a small stone there. I think it’s an uncut gemstone but I don’t recognise it. Could you identify it for me?”

“David, is everything all right?”

A voice broke in on his thoughts and he looked up to see Falaise standing there with a worried expression on her face. “You looked as though you were miles away.”

He hastily scrambled to his feet. “In a way I was, Falaise. But I’ll explain when the others get here.”

They did not have long to wait as Jaks led the others up the hill towards them and David told them what Kemon had learned.

“Lord Grekan would never dare,” Falaise said. “I’ve only met him a couple of times but he didn’t strike me as the sort of man who would risk everything on a gamble like this.”

“He might, if he thought he had nothing to lose. If he bends the knee to Lord Jeren, he will lose some of his authority over his people which, from what I’ve heard, will not please him. So, if his authority is going to diminish anyway, why not risk the lot and go for the bigger prize. At the very least we have to take some precautions against the possibility until we can establish Jeren’s claim to the throne.”

“How are you going to do that?” Falaise enquired. “Jeren already is the heir by blood.”

“Agreed and if Grekan marries you, he might continue to be the heir for a while. Until Grekan dies or he fathers another child on you.”

There was a little gasp of shock and Falaise covered her mouth with a hand as she considered that possibility.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt, my lady. But we need to prove Jeren’s claim beyond any doubt and in a way that will leave Grekan with no room for manoeuver.

“What do you propose?”

“Firstly we need to protect Jeren. Feynor, if you agree, I am going to promote Jacob here to the rank of sergeant. I want the two of you to pick out four men and you Jacob, will ensure that two of them are awake and within ten paces of Lord Jeren at all times, day and night.”

“Now wait a minute,” Jeren protested. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”

“Say that again and you’ll get my hand across the back of your head, prince or no prince,” Jacob growled.

“Sorry, Jacob,” Jeren apologised. “It’s just that….”

“…. you can look after yourself,” David finished. “Yes, I know you can in single combat but how many opponents can you take on at one time? Two? Four? Six? You will take the bodyguards, my lord and hopefully it will only be for twenty four hours until this whole thing is resolved.”

“You still haven’t said what you are going to do,” Falaise said.

“Tomorrow I’m going to work a magic, a very powerful magic and for that I need a lock of Jeren’s hair.”

“What!” Jeren exclaimed. “This is crazy. What exactly are you going to do?”

“I can’t tell you that right now, Jeren. You’re just going to have to trust me. And anyway, you could do with a haircut.”

***

The attack had come an hour before dawn. There were six of them and they were good. David had doubled the patrols around the base of the hill but they still managed to slip through. The night was dark with clouds blocking the light from both the moons but the attackers still took advantage of every scrap of cover they could find as they crept silently across the wet grass towards Jeren’s tent.

A muffled knock of wood on wood came as they passed one of the wagons and the attackers froze, looking for the source of the sound. When the sound was not repeated, the leader cautiously signalled his men to continue. The two bodyguards on duty began a patrol around the perimeter of
the
tent and the leader sent three of his men to intercept them as they came back round from the other side. With the other two men, he pushed open the tent flap and went inside.

“Good morning,” David said brightly
from the camp stool where he was sitting. “I’m afraid Lord Jeren isn’t here at the moment but if you wait a minute, I can send for him.”

The three men blinked in surprise as someone turned up the wick in a night lamp to reveal six heavily armed men, standing in a semicircle behind David. The last man into the tent tried hastily to back out again, only to find his way blocked by two of Jorgen’s burliest men. There were sounds of a scuffle from outside the tent and then Feynor’s voice reported ‘all clear, my lord’.

The leader of the attackers slowly raised his hands as David’s men moved to disarm and search them.

“Lord Held, I presume,” the leader said. “It appears you have us at a disadvantage.”

“Yes it does,” David agreed cheerfully. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why you’re here and who sent you.

“I think you know why we’re here and nobody sent us. We came on our own initiative.”

David stood up and nodded. “Under other circumstances, that answer could cause you a lot of pain but I don’t believe you could tell me anything I don’t already know. Take them away and put them under close guard. No contact with anybody. The rest of you stand down and get some rest. It’s going to be a long day today.”

Kemon reported to David while he was grabbing a quick breakfast with the girls.

“Sit down and have some food,” he said. “What have you got for me?”

“Nothing you can use, milord. As soon as they arrived yesterday, they spread out throughout the entire encampment. They were generous with wineskins and kegs of ale and they were pushing the message that Lord Grekan was a better leader to take them back to Marmoros than a fifteen year old boy. I haven’t found anyone yet who will speak against Lord Grekan although I think a lot of that is more due to fear than to loyalty.”

“Okay, don’t go back down there. The council meeting will start in a couple of hours and I would like to keep you handy.”

“There is one other thing, milord. There’s a bit of a kerfuffle going on down there at the moment. Apparently six men have gone missing overnight. Nobody knows what’s happened to them.”

“Yes, well maybe that will give Lord Grekan something to worry about.”

As the councillors started to arrive for the meeting, Jorgen’s red cloaks stood guard outside the tent and collected weapons from everyone going in. Excluding Lord Jeren there were fifteen councillors present;
six from Paelis including David and Falaise, Lord Meriden arrived with three others from Keldis and Lord Grekan came with four councillors from Westron. David was upset but not particularly surprised to see Lord Bardsley arrive with the Westron contingent.

Falaise opened the meeting by welcoming the Westron Lyenar and Jeren repeated his vision of what the Lyenar could achieve as a united people in retaking their homeland and the city of Marmoros.

“I think I speak for all the councillors,”
Grekan began. “When I thank you for sharing your vision of the future with us, young Jeren…”

“Lord Jeren,” Falaise interrupted furiously.

“I beg your pardon, Lord Jeren, but you are young and do not actually have a voice in this council.”

“That is where you are wrong, my lord. This is my council and you are my councillors; here to advise me and my lady mother as regent.”

“Preposterous. We do not advise you, Lord Jeren. We will instruct you on the wishes of the Lyenar people. You do not have the experience to lead the Lyenar into battle and neither does your mother. I propose that we appoint a strong leader to take charge of these mercenary forces and command the attack on Marmoros.”

“If I might intervene at this point,” David interrupted. “I am here under contract to Lord Jeren and at the specific entreaty of Lady Falaise, as leaders of the Lyenar. If they were no longer to be the leaders of your people, then I would regard the contract as being null and void, take my men and withdraw.”

There were expressions of dismay from councillors around the tent at the prospect of attacking Marmoros without the support of David’s company.

“Nonsense,” Grekan stated. “You are a mercenary and will fight for whoever pays you. I will issue you with a new contract and whatever they were paying you, I will double it.”

“You mistake me, my lord. I am under contract to Lord Jeren as leader of the Lyenar. Until he dismisses me or is no longer the leader of his people, I cannot consider another contract.”

“Then we will leave the terms of contract until we have resolved the leadership issue. But be very careful,
Lord
Held. Lord Bardsley tells me that you were appointed as councillor for your military experience
;
a decision that I can only put down to the lack of such experience in Lord Jeren and Lady Falaise. Under a stronger leader who already has that experience, we might not need you at all.”

“Do not threaten me, my lord,” David said, the ice in his tone lowering the temperature in the tent by several degrees. “For all your vaunted experience, you appear to be quite careless with your men. I hear you have misplaced six of them overnight.”

“They went out hunting and have not returned. What do you know of them?”

“They are safe, my lord. Relatively undamaged and, for the moment, not being pressed to break their silence.”

“How dare you detain my men? I demand their immediate release. You have no right to detain them.”

“Everything I have done has been in accordance with my contract to protect Lord Jeren. Do you really wish to disclose the circumstances surrounding my actions, my lord?”

The expressions of bemusement on the faces of the councillors not privy to the details of that exchange, vanished as Ash lifted the tent flap and stepped inside.

“Ash,” David said, with an expression of irritated surprise. “I gave orders not to be disturbed.”

“I beg your pardon for interrupting, my lord but there’s something you ought to see.”

“Well can’t it wait? I’m in the middle of a council meeting.”

“I think the council might want to see it as well, my lord.”

“Now you’re intriguing me. What is it?”

“One of the patrols has just come in, my lord and reported a large rock that wasn’t there yesterday.”

There were sounds of barely suppressed amusement from some of the councillors.

“This is one of your experienced officers, Lord Held,” Grekan guffawed. “Reporting a rock that his men failed to notice yesterday.”

“No, my lord. Reporting a rock that wasn’t there yesterday,” Ash replied stubbornly.

“How do you know it wasn’t there yesterday?” David asked.

“Because, my lord, it’s a very large rock standing slap in the middle of the highroad. There’s barely room for a wagon to get past it. It’s causing bit of a traffic jam on the way into Yarford.”

“Where exactly is it?”

“It’s just north of the camp, my lord. Where the trail to High Falls branches off and right in the middle of the highroad. There’s one other thing that’s strange about it.”

“What’s that?”

“My men reported that there’s a sword stuck in the rock with some writing above it. Neither of them could read it but one of them says it looks like old Lyenar script.”

***

There was a crowd surrounding the rock by the time the council arrived. As Ash had described, it was completely in the centre of the road, forcing wagons to go round it. Not that any wagons were trying to do so as everybody stopped to stare at the phenomenon. Townspeople from Yarford jostled good naturedly with a mass of people from the camp as everybody tried to get a view.

The crowd was so dense that initially the councillors could not get within fifty paces of the actual rock until David ordered the red cloaks to clear a passage. There was some grumbling from the crowd at this but eventually the councillors reached the front. The rock was large; it stood at twice the height of a man and was twenty paces around the circumference of the base. The hilt of the sword protruded horizontally from the rock at waist height and above that, in old Lyenar script as the councillors quickly confirmed, it read ‘The Sword of the King’.

Many of the crowd had already translated the script and the murmuring in the crowd increased as the councillors huddled together in discussion. The argument grew quite heated and David drew Jeren aside unnoticed by the other councillors.

“When you grasp the hilt,” David told him, “you will find a small stud under your thumb. Press that and the blade will glow blue with a faint shimmer and you can pull it out. Go and try it.”