Yesterday's Kings (16 page)

“Shall we speak again?”

“I’ve not been fed,” Lofantyl replied. “And I’m mightily hungry.”

“No doubt.” Per Fendur aped apology. “You must forgive me my faulty memory—I thought only of getting answers from you.” He bowed, elaborate and mocking. Then, to the hulking soldiers who accompanied him, “Bring him!”

Lofantyl was once again dragged from the cell and flung onto the rack. Per Fendur smiled at him as the straps were buckled about the wrists and ankles.

“A little tighter, today,” he said. “Perhaps enough to break your joints. Are Durrym limbs stronger than ours? We’ll see, eh?”

“I cannot tell you anything more,” Lofantyl declared. “No more than what I’ve said.”

“We shall see.” Per Fendur smiled equably and turned the wheel.

Lofantyl screamed, for all he’d vowed he’d not. He could not help the shriek that burst out as his hurting body was stretched farther.

“That hurts, no?” Per Fendur leaned close, smiling. “I cannot imagine how much it must hurt. And so much more to come. Until I’m satisfied.”

“With the truth or the pain?” Lofantyl moaned.

“Are they not the same?” The priest swung the wheel a notch tighter. “Truth is often painful—and the sooner you give me yours, the sooner this can end.”

He turned the wheel again; Lofantyl howled.

Per Fendur laughed.

And then the dungeon door slammed open and Lord
Bartram entered. Laurens stood behind him, and six solid men.

“What is this?” Bartram’s voice echoed the expression of disgust on his face.

“I question the prisoner,” Fendur said.

“You torture him.” Bartram stared at the rack. “I’d forgotten this existed.”

“It’s a useful tool,” the priest returned.

“Let him up!” Bartram gestured and Laurens stepped toward the horrid table.

Fendur darted in front of the master-at-arms. “Leave him be! He’s mine to question.”

Laurens hesitated, looking back at Lord Bartram, who smiled sardonically and repeated, “Let him up. Get him off that thing!” And then: “Put your sword into any who oppose you.”

“Treason!” Fendur howled. “You defy the Church and your king! Disobey me and you shall be excommunicated!”

Laurens glanced at Bartram, and saw his lord nod. So he cut the straps and lifted Lofantyl from the rack.

“I’ll see no man tortured in my keep,” Bartram said.

“He’s not a man,” Fendur snarled. “He’s a Durrym!”

“Even so,” Bartram replied, “he deserves respect.” He looked to Laurens, who held Lofantyl upright. “Take him back to his cell. And see it’s decent, eh? Fresh straw and clean water; and see him fed properly.”

Laurens ducked his head and hauled the stumbling Durrym away.

Bartram and Fendur glowered at one another, mutual dislike in their eyes.

“The Church shall hear of this,” Fendur threatened, “and not like what it hears.”

“Likely so,” Lord Bartram agreed. “But for now get out of my sight, lest I lose my temper.”

He watched as the priest quit the torture chamber. It was an afterthought to command the guards who’d aided Fendur to stand the midnight watch until he changed his mind. And then he ordered the men with him to destroy the apparatus of torture that filled the room. He saw the horrid instruments torn down and hammered; the tables set ablaze, until the dungeon was filled with smoke and fire. And then he wondered what he’d done, and if Per Fendur might not still bring him down in disgrace.

Save, he thought, it would not be disgrace, but only whatever honesty he could find.

A
BRA WONDERED
how Lofantyl fared. She was terribly afraid for him, and for herself. She sensed that if Per Fendur had his way, they’d both be executed—save her father intervened, which might well lose him his holding, or worse. She thought, as she lay restless on her bed, that the worst had arrived and all her roads were come together in a ghastly tangle that could leave only sorrow in its path. Had she refused Lofantyl’s advances none of this would have happened. He’d not have risked the keep’s walls to visit her, nor been captured, and then her father would have not have been in opposition to the Church.

She poured a glass of wine and stared from her window at the bleak walls of her home.

The snows had ceased now, and froze under a cold east wind. The keep’s walls were glassy with ice, and the
land beyond lay frozen and white, as empty as her hopes. A new moon rose, a yellow sickle that mocked her, looking as lonely as she felt, but more regal. She made a decision.

She tugged on a robe and found her way to the dungeons.

There were no guards—the night was icy, and who’d free a Durrym? The key to the outer gate was hung in a box by the wall, the turnkey gone to his dinner. She took it and opened the gate. There was a flight of stairs, descending into darkness and the stench of ordure and ancient straw, so that she coughed and muffled her sleeve about her nostrils as she found a lantern and carried it lit before her, calling Lofantyl’s name.

He answered and she brought the lamp to the front of his cell. Then dropped it as he took her hands and drew her against the bars.

“I love you,” he said.

“And I you,” she answered. “But what can we do?” “Are you safe here?”

She nodded. “The dungeons aren’t guarded.”

“Then—if you can, safely—bring me paper and pen.”

“To what end?” she asked, clutching his hands.

“I can send a message to my father. Does he hear of my plight, he might well sue for peace—agree to some treaty between us.”

“I’ll do it,” she promised.

L
OFANTYL RETURNED
to his straw-laden bed. His cell was cleaner now that Lord Bartram had ordered he be tended well. He had fresh water and decent food, but even so he was held prisoner by the Garm’kes Lyn. And even did he trust Bartram, he could not trust the priest,
or the one called Amadis. He thought that in time they’d put him back on the rack, or send him to the Church or the capital, where he’d be hung or burned. Unless he could escape, which would be difficult without help.

Without Abra.

He waited for the sky to brighten and then summoned the raven.

The bird settled noisily on the ledge of his cell, where he spoke to it and told it to return at sunset.

Which it did. But before then Abra had brought him a scroll and a nib and an inkpot, so he was able to compose a message that he fixed to the raven’s leg before he bade it fly.

T
HE BIRD LOFTED
over Lyth, black wings beating. It crossed the forest and the Alagordar, and came to a gentler land, leaving winter behind. It rested a while in the sun and then, compelled by Lofantyl’s command, flew onward, over such country as the Kandarians had never seen. Ahead lay Kash’ma Hall, all glossy and wooden in the late afternoon light, set in a great clearing, yet still part of the expansive woodland.

The bird landed on a tree that had no right to grow so green in winter—save it was not winter here—and waited until a caller, whose name was Arym, came and brought it down. It sat atop his wrist as he took off Lofantyl’s message, then hopped onto his shoulder as he brought it to the aviary and fed it nuts and grain.

Arym took the message to Isydrian.

The High Lord of Kash’ma Hall was settled by a hearth that burned so bright it should, in Kandar, have devoured all the keep, did they not live inside stone places. In Coim’na Drhu, however, the flames only
caressed the wood, decorating the hearth with reflections of fire, giving back only warmth.

Isydrian felt the cold now: he was growing old, and he felt a terrible presentiment as Arym delivered the message, bowed and departed. He doubted it was any good news.

His courtiers rose as he opened the scroll; he waved them back. This was something he’d read alone.

He held his aquiline features steady as he read of Lofantyl’s plight. Then beckoned Afranydyr to his side.

“I’ve a task for you.”

Afranydyr bowed his head. “As you command, Father.”

Isydrian said, “Your brother is held captive by the Garm. In Lyth Keep. The barbarians have tortured him, but the Garm woman aids him. She’ll help him escape, all well. I want to rescue him.”

“How?” Afranydyr demanded. “Kandar’s snowbound—how shall we make the way?”

“I don’t care—make it!” Isydrian glowered at his older son. “Your brother is held prisoner by the Garm. Shall you see him executed?”

Afranydyr shook his head.

“Then go!”

“How many warriors shall I take?” Afranydyr asked.

“Ten should be enough,” Isydrian replied. “You face, after all, only Garm’kes Lyn.”

“Yes, my father.” Afranydyr ducked obeisance. “As you command, my father.”

C
OIM’NA
D
RHU RESTED AUTUMNAL.
The grass grew green and the trees were still leafed, so from Kash’ma Hall to the Mys’enh they made good time.
Beyond the river, however, winter locked the land. The west bank of the Alagordar was all snowy, and the big Durrym chargers protested the cold with snorts of disapproval. They were larger and fleeter than any Garm horse, but accustomed to the benign climate of Coim’na Drhu, so their riders must urge them on, themselves shivering as the cold gripped, watching their mounts blow great steamy breaths into the chill air.

“It’s my brother we come to rescue,” Afranydyr declared dutifully. “Shall we let a little inclement weather halt us?”

Gofylans, who was his second, blew on his hands and said, “No. But I cannot like this miserable country. I wonder if the Garm didn’t do us a favor when they drove us out.”

Afranydyr chuckled. “Coim’na Drhu is surely more pleasant. I think the Garm don’t understand the country. I think they only seek to own it, and make it theirs.”

Gofylans stared at him. “How so? How can anyone own the land?”

“They’re Garm,” Afranydyr said. “They don’t understand.”

Gofylans shook his head in disbelief.