Blood in the Water (31 page)

Pelletria pursed her lips. “Ah, Ridianne of Marlier is riding this way.”

Litasse saw the red and silver standard leading the horsemen galloping out of Triolle Town. “So there’s news.” She began walking quickly along the battlements.

“Not too fast, Your Grace,” reproved Pelletria. “You’re merely taking the air.”

“Of course.” Litasse curbed her pace with some effort. She stole a glance at the bastion, seeing one of the sentries there quickly disappearing down the stairs. Off to tell Iruvain what she was doing or warning him to expect Ridianne?

They reached the Grebe Tower, where Triolle’s heirs and daughters were traditionally housed. The nursery’s dustsheets wouldn’t be coming off any time soon. Iruvain still hadn’t visited her bed. The sentry doing his best to find a spot sheltered from the wind bowed hastily. Litasse acknowledged him with a meaningless smile.

Now she saw a liveried man-at-arms running across the open bailey, heading straight for the Duke’s Tower. Two more were hurrying along the battlements to take the news to the Chatelaine’s Tower and the Steward’s Tower.

The man on the Messenger Tower was one of Iruvain’s own. He bowed curtly to Litasse. Litasse didn’t even meet his gaze. Let him think he was doing his duty, still forbidding her access to Master Hamare’s rooms as Iruvain had decreed.

They reached the Duke’s Tower. The man guarding the turret opened the door to allow Litasse and Pelletria inside. They hurried down the spiral stairs, skirts inelegantly hitched.

Litasse wondered whereabouts in the castle’s accounts Pelletria hid the sums she was paying these suborned men. No matter. Iruvain had no interest in details as long as the ledgers balanced. Apparently nothing drew his attention to his guards’ divided loyalties.

They reached the ground floor and Pelletria hurried towards the duke’s private servery. In the shadows behind the stairs, Litasse took a steadying breath. The other dukes would soon be here to discuss this news. Would Pelletria’s plan to insinuate her into the audience chamber work?

It seemed an age before they arrived. At long last the door to the bailey opened to admit exclaiming voices. The slam of Iruvain’s audience chamber door silenced them all.

“Your Grace, here.” Pelletria was at her elbow with a tray of cordials and cakes.

“Make sure no one knocks.” Litasse straightened her shoulders, took the tray and stepped forward. The old woman opened the door, brushing aside a lackey’s protests.

The chamber door closed behind Litasse. No one in the room so much as looked her way. She swallowed the excuses she’d rehearsed; that she was humbling herself to serve them in the interests of discretion. Who knew where the exiles might have spies?

“Treachery!” Duke Garnot stared blindly out of the window, clenched fists striking the stone sill.

“Your Grace.” Iruvain cleared his throat. “What of your wife and son?”

What had happened? Litasse dared not draw attention by asking.

Lord Cassat, Draximal’s youthful heir, suddenly noticed her arrival. He sprang to his feet to relieve her of the tray. “Carluse Castle has fallen,” he explained in low tones.

“Saedrin save us,” she breathed, suitably appalled.

Lord Cassat was five years older than Lord Ricart of Carluse, and worth ten of Lord Ricart, in her father’s estimation. Everything that Pelletria had learned eavesdropping on the dukes seemed to confirm it. For a young man untried in war, he had a singular grasp of strategy.

“Murdered.” Duke Garnot choked on fury, not grief. “Those guilty of this treason will be hurled from my castle’s heights and left for the buzzards on the plain below.”

“As is only right and proper.” Lord Geferin of Parnilesse didn’t sound particularly distraught over his sister’s death. “What of your daughters?”

There had been talk of a match between Duke Orlin’s second son and one or other of the two unwed girls remaining in Tadira’s clutches.

Litasse took a step backwards to efface herself against the panelling. Tall with curly brown hair, Lord Cassat was handsome enough to prompt Iruvain’s unwarranted jealousy and she certainly didn’t want to draw Lord Geferin’s licentious eye.

“They are held captive,” Garnot spat. “Subject to Saedrin knows what outrage. Well, their sisters are married to loyal men who will avenge their lost virtue.”

Was that so? Duke Garnot was still waiting for his vassal lords to rally to the boar’s head standard, according to the letters that Pelletria was intercepting and reading before sending them on their way.

“Evord Fal Breven won’t allow any abuse of your daughters, Your Grace.”

The audience chamber door opened to reveal Ridianne of Marlier. Well, Pelletria could hardly have stood against her, Litasse allowed.

“They’ll be accommodated with every comfort, like Duchess Aphanie and the Sharlac girls,” the mercenary woman continued. “I imagine they’ll be housed together.”

“Do you?” Garnot scorned her assurance. “To see justice done, we must retake Carluse and—”

“Where is this Soluran heading next?” Lord Cassat interrupted. “Does anybody know?”

Ridianne was still standing in the entrance. “May I have a seat?”

How could Ferdain of Marlier take such a woman to his bed? She was gracelessly stout, her features coarsened by wind and weather. Her greying hair looked to have been cropped with blunt shears and she wore faded black breeches and doublet without a hint of shame.

Litasse could only assume she’d been more alluring in her youth, or infamously free with her favours. Ferdain of Marlier’s marriage must have been even more of a sham than her own.

“As you wish, Madam Captain.” Iruvain gestured grudgingly to the table.

“According to my sources, Carluse Castle fell two days ago,” Ridianne said, harsh and uncompromising. “If Evord has been taking counsel with his captains while his men tend their wounds and resupply themselves, he will march on today or tomorrow.”

“But where to?” Lord Cassat turned his frustration on the mercenary woman. “We cannot prepare till we know his intentions.”

“Send scouts to find out,” Duke Garnot ordered Duke Iruvain.

“The dog has a choice of three roads,” Iruvain said testily. “North and east towards Ashgil, south and east towards Tyrle, or south and west towards Hengere. We will know before sunset tomorrow—”

Ridianne of Marlier interrupted. “We must march before sunset today.”

“Shall we each pick a rune for a road and roll the bones to guide us?” Iruvain was scathing.

“You can if you wish, Your Grace,” Ridianne retorted. “I’d recommend more rational reasoning.”

“If he takes the Ashgil Road, we can assume he intends to attack Draximal,” Lord Cassat suggested. “Heading for Tyrle puts Triolle in his sights while taking the Hengere Road challenges Duke Ferdain.”

“Each of which demands a different response,” Lord Geferin said thoughtfully. “Guess wrong and we’ll be fatally wrong-footed. Better to wait.”

“Parnilesse can afford to wait.” Polite, Lord Cassat was nevertheless firm. “Don’t presume for the rest of us, my lord.”

Duke Garnot grunted his agreement while Iruvain slowly nodded.

“Evord will head for Tyrle.” Ridianne the Vixen had no doubts. “It’s his first step to stamping on Triolle. He’s not a man to leave a job half-finished and as long as you are here, Your Grace, Carluse cannot be considered beaten. He won’t want to see Triolle and Parnilesse uniting with either Draximal or Marlier while he campaigns against the other, my lords. Why else do you think he has those Dalasorians of his camped around Ashgil, if not to stop your army following the straightest line to Carluse, my Lord Cassat? Conquering Triolle divides his remaining foes.”

Litasse’s mouth was dry. Iruvain wouldn’t swallow that unpalatable truth.

“You are misinformed,” Iruvain rasped. “Triolle can field five thousand men this very day.”

“Excellent.” Ridianne was unabashed. “May I suggest you march them to Tyrle? Leave now and you should arrive a day or so ahead of Captain-General Evord.”

“I take it the fortifications are in good repair?” Lord Cassat asked thoughtfully.

“Naturally,” Garnot snapped, wheeling around from the window.

“I can see sound arguments for moving Triolle’s regiments there, Your Grace.” The young Draximal lord addressed himself respectfully to Iruvain. “If this Soluran does plan on attacking Triolle—and Marlier’s woman is right, keeping our forces divided is sound strategy on his part—we want to stop him short of your borders.

“If he moves on Draximal or Marlier instead—” he balanced that possibility on his other open hand “—we’ll know all the sooner if you’re headquartered in Tyrle. Then whichever dukedom he’s intent on can make ready to meet him in battle. All the while, Triolle’s forces can ally with either myself or Duke Ferdain’s army and make ready to attack him from the rear.”

“With Parnilesse’s support,” Lord Geferin interjected quickly.

“And Carluse’s,” Duke Garnot insisted, venomous. “My vassal lords are mustering my militia regiments as we speak.”

“We can crack this Soluran between us.” Iruvain smiled with relief. “Like a festival nut.”

Was such optimism justified? Litasse wondered how strong Marlier and Draximal’s armies might be.

Ridianne asked the question for her. “What strength can you field, Lord Cassat? How far from Tyrle are your forces?”

“We have five thousand foot and over a thousand cavalry,” he replied promptly, “two-thirds of them paid men, the rest well-drilled militia.” He hesitated. “At present, as best I can estimate, they will be some six days’ march from Tyrle, though.”

“March faster,” Duke Garnot said tersely.

“I have about the same number under arms,” Ridianne observed. “Some few hundreds more cavalry. We’ll reach Marlier’s border in seven days or so, Tyrle a few days after that if we force the pace.”

“Parnilesse forces will arrive at much the same time,” Lord Geferin said quickly.

Litasse saw the other lords pay little heed to his ingratiating smile.

“Can you hold Tyrle until then, Your Grace?” Ridianne asked Iruvain.

“Of course,” Duke Garnot snapped.

Iruvain shot him an indignant glare. “Naturally we can.”

“Draximal and Triolle together will have an advantage in numbers even without Marlier.” The female mercenary thought for a moment, then nodded. “If you can entangle Evord in another siege and keep him occupied with skirmishes around Tyrle, I can cut off his retreat to Carluse, maybe even retake the town and castle there.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Duke Garnot said caustically. “Loot this Soluran’s baggage train and consider yourself well paid. Do not plunder my domains.”

“I’m assuming Evord’s men will have picked Carluse clean,” Ridianne retorted before addressing Lord Cassat and Duke Iruvain. “Consider the advantages of breaking the chain linking Evord’s army to the Great West Road and the supplies he’s receiving from Ensaimin.”

“Cut off the snake’s head and it dies,” Lord Cassat observed. “She’s right, and we should move on Ashgil as soon as Tyrle is secure. He’s relying on those Dalasorians to keep the roads open for his wagons.”

Lord Geferin said something Litasse didn’t catch as the door opened again. A liveried lackey slipped in, coming to take away the tray of refreshments. He jerked his head infinitesimally towards the door. Litasse saw he’d left it a fraction ajar. Pelletria was beckoning through the crack.

The noblemen and Marlier’s whore were all talking at once, their arguments growing heated. Litasse slipped out, unnoticed.

“What is it?” she demanded.

Pelletria raised a cautionary finger to her withered lips before hurrying towards the outer door. Litasse followed. By the time they reached the music room in the Duchess’s Tower, she was burning with frustration.

“What is it?”

Pelletria locked the door. “Another courier dove from Karn,” she said quietly.

“Well?” she demanded in a whisper. With just the two of them, there was no one to guard against ears pressed to the keyhole.

“A mage called Minelas is on his way.” Pelletria’s eyes were icy-bright. “He’ll be here inside ten days.”

“No sooner?” Litasse was aghast.

Pelletria shook her head. “A wizard cannot use magic to travel where he’s never been.”

“What manner of man is he?” Litasse’s stomach hollowed. “What of the Archmage’s strictures?”

“Karn says he has no patience with Planir the Black.” Pelletria offered a coiled slip of paper taken from the lace at her cuff. “He’s been using his magic all this past summer while corsairs have been raiding the Caladhrian coast.”

“Without suffering any consequences?” Litasse still sought assurance.

“Perhaps Hadrumal turns a blind eye when magic is used to defend the innocent.” A faint frown deepened Pelletria’s wrinkles.

Litasse bit her lip. “Iruvain and the rest seem confident they can beat this Soluran. We may not need to take such a step.” Had she been too hasty, blinded by her hatred of Garnot?

“It never hurts to have a second string for a bow,” Pelletria observed. “Once this Soluran is defeated, having a wizard beholden to Triolle could still make all the difference to Lescar.”