Dangerous Waters (22 page)

A glint through a crack in the planking showed a lamp approaching. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Corrain, and a friend.’ His voice cracked and he couldn’t continue.

‘Corrain?’ The door flew open, nearly hitting him in the face. Incredulous, the old man thrust his lantern so close that Corrain could feel the candle’s heat on his cheek.

‘Saedrin save us,’ the old man breathed. ‘Everyone thinks you’re dead, lad! Poldrion turn you back for lack of coin for the ferry to Saedrin’s door?’

‘I was taken by corsairs. We were betrayed—’ Corrain bit down on his words. Lady Zurenne must be the first to hear this.

But the old man was nodding comfortably. ‘By Master Minelas, that scum.’ Fitrel spat casual contempt into the darkness. ‘But we never expected to see any of you, not when the lady wizard said you’d been taken by the raiders’ ships.’

He squinted at Kusint, hopeful for an instant then trying to hide his disappointment. ‘You’re welcome, friend, if you’re a friend of this one.’

‘That’s good to know.’ Kusint ducked his head, his eyes bright with equal amusement and curiosity.

‘Where is Master Minelas?’ Corrain could barely get the words out. Had someone already taken the vengeance he’d promised himself?

‘Ah, now that’s a very good question—’ Fitrel broke off to step back from the threshold. ‘But come inside, lad, you and your friend. You’ve had a hard time of it on the road, I’d say. Let me find you some bread and broth.’

The door opened into a kitchen warmed by an iron stove guarded by a brick built hearth and chimney. The room showed an old soldier’s discipline, clean and mostly tidy but lacking niceties such as rugs on the flagstone floor or cushions on the wooden chairs. Fitrel lived alone as he always had. He’d been sharpening knives on the deal table.

Corrain’s gaze lit on a wicked blade. ‘What do you know of Minelas’s treachery?’

‘We did wonder what Lord Halferan could have meant by signing that grant of guardianship.’ Fitrel’s hand shook as he set the lamp on the table. ‘But how could the likes of us gainsay it?’

He went to the stove and lifted the lid from a heavy pot. The aroma of stewed rabbit filled the room. ‘Then he took himself off, last Aft-Autumn, leaving Starrid in charge, with a troop of scoundrels eager to break heads if anyone cared to argue. Then come Spring Festival, Raeponin finally sent us some justice. Lord Licanin came and drove Starrid out and hanged them of his men as didn’t run. They’re still rotting on the gallows.’

‘And Minelas?’ Corrain had to sit down. The flagstones underfoot felt as uncertain as a galley’s deck.

‘No one knows.’ Fitrel took two bowls from a shelf. ‘Even the lady wizard can’t find him.’

‘What lady wizard?’ Taking a seat on the opposite side of the table, Kusint asked the question which Corrain couldn’t begin to frame.

‘Madam Jilseth.’ Fitrel ladled chunks of meat into the bowls. ‘From Hadrumal.’ He startled Corrain with a sudden laugh. ‘She made Starrid look a fool and a half. Shame you weren’t here to see that, lad.’

‘I thought you said Starrid was gone.’ Corrain’s hand moved towards a knife.

Fitrel chuckled again. ‘Turns out he went scuttling to lick Lord Karpis’s boots in hopes of getting his place here back again. As soon as Lord Licanin took to the road, they came riding in, ready to run roughshod over Lady Zurenne. But the wizard lady was here and they didn’t expect that.’

The old man raised a warning hand. ‘You don’t want to go sniffing round Ralia again. Now she’s rid of Starrid, she burned their marriage bed and she’s keeping company with Brahen. They’ll wed at midsummer.’

‘I’ll dance at the feast to wish them well.’ Corrain had no interest in the steward’s former wife. He’d only fallen into bed with her because he was drunk and she was weeping over the latest bruises which Starrid had given her. Hearing that gobbet of snot had turned his coat for Minelas came as no surprise. There was a far worse shock to contend with.

‘What by all that’s sacred and profane is a wizard woman doing here?’ he demanded.

‘She came to find out the truth with her magic, of what happened in the marshes.’ Fitrel set the steaming bowls on the table and took a loaf of bread from an earthenware crock. ‘Once Lord Licanin learned that Master Minelas had left us and there was every reason to doubt his appointment as guardian in the first place.’

Corrain could only stare as Fitrel told his tale, finally concluding with the widespread approval of Lord Licanin as the Halferan barony’s guardian until Lady Ilysh was old enough to wed.

‘So did you escape from some corsair ship raiding the coast? Where was that? South of here?’ Fitrel sat at the end of the table, lacing his stained fingers tight. ‘We’ve been fearing these high tides.’

It took Corrain a moment to realise what the old man meant. Of course, the galleys would be rowing north by now. The Lesser Moon had waxed to its full two days ago and the Greater would do so in four night’s time. Even with the Lesser waning, the seas would be ripe for raids. He hadn’t given that a second thought. Now he was back in Caladhria, the only thing he wanted to do was kill Minelas.

But here he was, like some lackwit who’d lost his almanac and turned up for a midsummer fair only to find the festival already over, solstice garlands wilted and tossed aside.

‘Do you—’ Fitrel hesitated. ‘Do you have word of the others? The lady wizard said you were chained for slaves but her spells couldn’t find you.’

Hunger beyond bearing prompted Corrain to take up his spoon and eat. The meat was tender, the broth rich with herbs and if the bread was a day stale, it soaked up the glistening liquid. None of it filled the hollow beneath his breastbone.

‘Corrain, lad?’ Fitrel tried again.

‘I don’t know anything,’ he said dully.

Kusint cleared his throat. ‘Hosh—’

‘We’ve no word for Hosh’s old mother.’ As Corrain shoved the empty bowl away, the chain dangling from his manacle clinked against the pottery.

He glared at Kusint. There was no mercy in telling an old woman that her son was doubtless dead of a flogging. The fool boy must be shark shit by now. After Corrain had abandoned him, telling himself it was for Halferan’s sake, for the oath they had both sworn.

Now it was all for nothing. Corrain’s gorge rose and he feared he was about to spew that stew and bread back up again. He swallowed hard.

Whatever Fitrel saw in Corrain’s face prompted him to turn to Kusint. ‘Where are you headed, friend?’

‘No idea.’ Kusint shrugged.

‘Will Lady Zurenne give us an audience?’ Corrain rose to his feet. He couldn’t face the prospect of an evening here by the stove fending off Fitrel’s questions. Besides, he had some burning questions of his own.

‘Now? It’s late,’ Fitrel said dubiously.

‘Never mind.’ Corrain was heading for the door undeterred.

‘You put me in mind of the Dalasorian horsemen in Lescar.’ Kusint stood up. ‘Do you know what they always say?’

Corrain halted, half turned. ‘No.’

Kusint grinned. ‘When in doubt, gallop.’

Despite everything, Corrain’s heart lightened a little. ‘You’re still with me?’

Kusint shrugged. ‘Why not?’

‘Why not?’ Fitrel was caught between bafflement and outrage. ‘Because you’re filthy dirty, the pair of you, and barely dressed. You haven’t even got boots to your feet and you expect admittance to my lady?’

Corrain was already out of the door.

Fitrel followed, hastily snatching his cloak from a peg on the wall. ‘I’d better vouch for you at the manor. Arigo’s got the duty and he’s as blind as a mole these days.’

‘Arigo?’ Corrain was startled. ‘He was pensioned off two years since.’

‘Three years, him and me both,’ Fitrel retorted. ‘But we’re the best my lady can call on to hold off the likes of Lord Karpis!’

As it turned out, Arigo was asleep by the guard hall fire. A youth who looked vaguely familiar opened the wooden slide to see who knocked on the gate.

‘Open up, Reven,’ Fitrel said briskly. ‘Captain Corrain’s back to whip you into shape.’

The boy stood gaping before scrambling to open up. ‘Captain Corrain?’ he called out as they hurried through the gate and across the cobbles. ‘My Uncle Treche, do you know what befell him?’

Of course. The lad had the look of the man. Corrain almost turned but Kusint laid a warning hand on his arm.

‘Answer him now and there’ll be ten more tugging your sleeve. You must see your lady first.’

Corrain could already hear disbelieving voices repeating his name as the guard hall’s opening door threw candle light across the compound. As the steward’s door opened, a curtain rattled on its rings, hastily pulled back from the parlour window.

The door at the top of the great hall steps opened. ‘What’s amiss?’ A woman called out. Not Lady Zurenne or anyone else whose voice Corrain recognised.

‘Madam Mage.’ Fitrel ducked his head in a nervous bow.

‘You’re this lady wizard they speak of?’ Corrain couldn’t see her clearly; a shadow against the lamplight inside the hall.

‘I am.’ The torch in the bracket beside the door flared scarlet.

Corrain wasn’t impressed, either by the magic or what the firelight revealed. The magewoman looked like a dressmaker’s maid. Then again, Minelas had seemed unremarkable. More than one trooper had thought him a milksop, before he’d called down lightning to kill Halferan’s men between one blink of an eye and the next.

Corrain squared his shoulders. ‘I wish to see Lady Zurenne.’

‘I will see if she has finished dining.’ The wizard woman stepped back. ‘Come in and wait.’

Kusint glanced at him. What now? Corrain realised he’d never shared the details of Minelas’s magic with the Forest youth. Come to that, he hadn’t the slightest notion what Kusint knew of wizardry.

But what else could they do? He went up the steps. Kusint followed. The magewoman was walking back down the length of the hall. She had been reading, alone at the high table up on the dais. Reading and writing. Paper and ink lay beside the open books.

‘Please, be seated. I will see if her ladyship is willing to see you.’ She sounded like a maidservant. Though a maidservant couldn’t have sent the outer door behind them slamming back into its frame untouched by human hand. Corrain shivered.

‘So this is the pride of Halferan.’ Kusint had paused to look around the hall. ‘Truly handsome, my friend.’

‘It looks better in the daylight.’ Corrain’s courage returned as he contemplated the lofty ceiling. The banners hung veiled in night’s shadows but he knew them by heart; the standards of each Baron Halferan since time out of mind, blending the pewter and damson insignia with the emblems of those baronies whose daughters they had married.

‘Captain Corrain?’ Up on the dais, the door to the baronial tower opened. ‘No, not captain. You were disgraced even before you were lost.’

Lady Zurenne walked forward. Hearing her disdain and distrust Corrain wished fervently for clean clothes, polished boots and a shave.

He dropped humbly to one knee. ‘I was disgraced, my lady, through my own grievous fault. I am ever grateful to your husband, my lord, that he didn’t dismiss me entirely.’

‘Yet you are here and he is dead. How can that be?’

Corrain was shocked to see the difference in Halferan’s lady. She had always been slightly built, short enough to tuck her head under her husband’s chin, within the protective circle of his arm. Yet the curve of her hip and bosom had always promised every womanly virtue, her face as soft as a flower. Now her dark eyes were huge above cheekbones sharp against the dark luxuriance of her hair. A green gown made to her former measure hung in unaccustomed slackness at her hips.

He stifled his anguish. ‘My life had the meagre value of a slave’s, my lady, and that’s the only reason I was saved. But your husband’s death was of infinite worth to Master Minelas.’

‘Indeed.’ A crystal tear beaded Lady Zurenne’s lashes. ‘Very well, Guard Corrain, swear your loyalty to Halferan and you may return to your duties.’ She regarded his dishevelment with distaste. ‘Once you are bathed and clothed. You and your companion.’ She contemplated Kusint with ill-concealed confusion.

‘My lady.’ Corrain clenched his fists behind his back. ‘I must ask you. How does this lady wizard come to be here?’

‘Madam Jilseth is searching for that thief Master Minelas.’ Zurenne cocked her head, eyes bright as a bird. ‘Why do you ask?’

Corrain wanted to ask what the noblewoman suspected. There was more here than met the eye, along with secrets on all sides. Corrain’s anger was steadily burning through the unexpected torment of finding no target here for his revenge.

Listening to Fitrel’s tale of what had gone on since Lord Halferan’s death, Corrain had realised something. However ripe the obscenities the old man had heaped on Minelas’s name, he’d never so much as hinted that the traitor was a wizard.

Corrain remembered that only Baron Halferan and his most trusted troopers had known the truth. Conspiring to suborn renegade sorcery, to outwit the Archmage himself; that was hardly something a Caladhrian noble wanted bandied around the taprooms. Baron Halferan wouldn’t have burdened his wife with such knowledge.

‘Is that to expiate Hadrumal’s guilt?’ Corrain had made his decision. If Minelas was no longer here to render up his life for his crimes, then someone else was going to pay.

As Zurenne stared at him, uncomprehending, the lady wizard stepped forward ‘What—’

Corrain spoke quickly, before her sorcery could silence him. ‘Master Minelas was a mage, my lady. My lord Halferan promised him gold in return for his spells against the corsairs, after the Archmage of Hadrumal refused us any such aid. Your husband, my lord, he begged the Archmage time and again for help.’ He spared a scowl for the lady wizard.

‘Then Minelas betrayed us to the corsairs. They’d offered him more gold than Halferan could and he was more than willing to sell his wizardry. His magic killed men and beasts alike in that fight in the marshes.’ Now Corrain was shouting, his voice raw with hatred. ‘He wouldn’t face my lord in a fair fight. The coward had one of those corsair scum stab him in the back!’

He wished those words unsaid as Lady Zurenne buried her face in her hands. She swayed and for one heart-stopping moment, Corrain feared she would fall headlong from the dais to the hall floor below.