Dark Lady's Chosen (42 page)

“Harrtuck said that’s going to be hard to prove,” Carroway said quietly. “When you look at it from what Harrtuck and his men saw, what’s to say I didn’t barge in there intending to kill Kiara and Crevan died trying to stop me?”

Macaria looked away. “Dame Nuray has already been spreading that version of the story.”

“Have you seen Paiva and Bandele?”

Macaria shook her head. “They’re probably lying low, waiting for some of this to blow over.”

“If it comes to trial, they have the evidence against Crevan,” Carroway said in a low voice only she could hear. “That’s how I knew to come after him. They brought it to show me, and they must have smuggled it out of my room at the inn after I left. Without it, there’s no reason why I would pick last night to escape or why Crevan intended to kill her on Candles Night.” He paused. “What about Alle and the others? How are they?”

Macaria shrugged. “Alle, the cook and the scullery maid are fine. Jae, too. Cerise was able to save two of the king’s dogs, but the mastiff must have eaten the largest share of poisoned meat. He was already dead.”

“What a mess,” Carroway said. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair, wanting to remember how it felt to have her arms around him. “I can’t believe you told Harrtuck we were handfasted.”

“Are you angry with me?”

Carroway chuckled. “Angry? Not at all. But I don’t want my shame to taint you.”

Macaria stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him. “I don’t care what anyone thinks.” She took the heavy woolen scarf from around her neck and clasped his right hand with hers, winding the scarf around their wrists. “There. It’s hardly official, but now it’s not a lie. It’s as fasted as my parents ever were. Will you have me, Riordan Carroway?”

He looked at her, astonished. “For all my days, however long or short that is. But why would you bind yourself to me now? I’m as good as dead.”

“No one knows how many days are left. My dad didn’t mean to drown in the river, and my mum didn’t set out to die of pox. I’ll take these days, however many there are, and be glad for

them,” Macaria replied, meeting his eyes. “No regrets.”

He bent down to kiss her. “None at all.”

Cam of Cairnrach waited to die. The explosion at the fuller’s mill had tossed him into the cold winter air and hurled him into a snow bank; no small feat considering his bulk.

Scorched and bleeding, he lay in the snow amid the rain of wreckage. He could still see the flames that danced high into the night sky and despite his pain, he laughed.

Abruptly he stopped, and coughed up blood.

“Let the sword be sheathed, and the helm shuttered,” he murmured. “Prepare a feast in the hall of your fallen heroes. Cam of Cairnrach was stupid enough to be captured and blew his own ass sky high. Overlook that, please, and make his passage swift and his journey easy, until his soul rests in the arms of the Lady.”

Jonmarc was probably right. Nobody’s listening. And if the Goddess was, she’d be laughing.

What a ridiculous way to die, half burned and half frozen and spattered with fuller’s muck.

“Cam! Cam of Cairnrach!” The voice came from a distance. The accent was odd and managed to mangle “rach” into “reech.” Cam listened, certain he was hallucinating.

“Cam! Cam of Cairnrach!” Cam tried to respond and managed to nearly choke on his own blood.
You can’t answer a vision. Dying men hear strange things. Most of them hear their
mothers. It figures I’d be called to my eternal rest by a vision that can’t even pronounce my
name right.
Unable to move, he looked about but saw no one. Then he spotted a battered tin pot lying where it had fallen in the explosion, hanging from a piece of splintered wood.

With his good hand, Cam squashed a handful of snow until it became a hard pellet of ice.

He threw it against the pot, sending it clattering into the wreckage.

“I heard something. Over here!”
With my luck, he’ll be a divisionist with a sharp knife.

To his utter amazement, Rhistiart appeared out of the smoke. “I found him!”

Rhistiart dropped to his knees beside Cam and motioned for two men to follow. Cam recognized one of the men as Trygve, Donelan’s personal battle healer. The other man held a sword and remained standing, taking up a position that let him ward away any unwanted newcomers.

“You got through,” Cam rasped.

Rhistiart grinned. “Aye. For once in my gods-forsaken life, I did something right. And the king promised me a pardon if I could lead them to you. So here I am!”

“Lie still and don’t talk,” Trygve commanded sternly. Cam wanted to tell him that neither one was a stretch, but instead, he turned his head and spat blood.

“Your sister will have my hide if this doesn’t work,” Trygve murmured. “And you don’t want a healer like her mad at you. So I’ll have to do my best to heal you, and you’re going to have to do your best not to die. Do we have an understanding?”

Cam gave the barest of nods.

“Good. Let’s get started.”

The snow chilled him through, dulling the pain as Trygve began the healing. Overhead, the moon crossed the sky as the candlemarks passed. And when Trygve reached to Rhistiart for help with the healing, to Cam’s surprise, the fugitive silversmith agreed. From the look on Rhistiart’s face, Cam guessed that this had become the greatest adventure of the man’s life.

“No, Donelan didn’t come himself,” Trygve answered Cam’s unspoken question. “But he sent the Veigonn, with a direct order to execute the men who captured you and to do it slowly if you were dead.”

Cam’s surprise must have registered on his face despite his pain. “Yeah, I know. The Veigonn doesn’t go after just anyone,” Trygve continued. The Veigonn were the king’s personal protectors, an elite squad committed to protect the royal family. That Donelan would send them for him was a high honor.

Trygve gave a harsh laugh. “Then again, from the ransom they demanded, the divisionists must have thought you were really worth your weight in gold.” Cam groaned as Trygve pressed his hands against his abdomen. “Hush. You’re hurt worse where it doesn’t show than where it does—and that’s saying something. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

“Will this help?” Rhistiart unfastened a flask from his belt, and Cam knew from the smell when it was uncapped that it held river rum.

“That will do just fine. Give it to him a bit at a time so he doesn’t choke. He’ll need all you can spare; he’s tore up bad. But maybe not too bad to fix, if the Lady smiles on me today,”

Trygve said.

Cam drifted in and out of consciousness as Trygve worked. Although it seemed to Cam as if every bit of his body ached or bled, Trygve seemed most worried about the injuries no one could see, followed by the festering wound on his hand where his finger had been severed.

Finally, when Cam wondered if they were all going to freeze to death, Trygve sat back on his heels.

“It should be safe to move you, though Lady knows, I’m not done yet. But at least the wagon ride back to Aberponte won’t kill you.”

Trygve made it as comfortable as possible, wrapping him in horse blankets and filling the wagon with straw to keep him warm. Even so, the wind was bitterly cold. To Cam’s continuing surprise, Rhistiart rode with him in the back of the wagon. Rhistiart snuggled down in his heavy cloak, huddled against the wind.

“I heard Trygve talking with the leader of the Veigonn,” Rhistiart said, keeping up a one-sided conversation although his teeth were chattering. “They weren’t sure how they’d find you. You certainly solved that problem.”

“One of my many talents,” Cam murmured.

“I never thought I’d see Aberponte from the inside. At least, not unless they took me to the dungeons to hang,” Rhistiart went on. “I said my piece to the first guards I came to, just like you told me to. They took me to another set of guards, and then they took me to a different set until, before I knew it, they were marching me into the palace to see the king.”

He leaned forward conspiratorially. “He’s taller than I thought, but then again, I’ve only ever seen his face on a gold piece. Anyhow, the king made me say what you told me, and then tell him everything I knew. He’s a fearsome man when he’s angry. Seems he’s had his men out searching for you since the traitors sent him your finger. They sent me out of the room, but I could hear them arguing after I left about whether or not the king should ride out with the guards tonight. ’Tis not an easy thing to tell the king no.”

“Especially Donelan.”

Cam coughed and Rhistiart looked alarmed. “No, no. Don’t you dare die on me. Do you hear, Cam of Cairnrach?” His breath fogged in the cold. “I’ll have to sing.”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

In response, Rhistiart launched into an off-key tavern tune that made the carriage driver wince and glance over his shoulder. Rhistiart’s awful singing and the beat of the horses’

hooves marked the time until the wagon passed through the city gates and made its way up the approach to Aberponte.

It took four men on each side to gentle Cam onto several stout boards in order to carry him into the palace. Donelan himself stood in the doorway, a dark, imposing shadow. As Cam was carried toward the upper rooms of the palace, he heard Donelan demanding a briefing from the head of the Veigonn. Rhistiart stayed beside Cam, although his singing ended abruptly as soon as the lights of the palace came into view.

Cam groaned as the men transferred him into a bed. Allestyr, Donelan’s seneschal, had the room ready. It was well lit with candles and reflectors, and Cam could hear a kettle of water whistling as it boiled on the hearth. Rhistiart seemed to shrink into the shadows as the door swung open and Donelan strode into the room with Trygve.

“Well?”

“I was able to do enough at the battle site to keep him from dying,” Trygve said. “This will take a while. If he weren’t so well padded he’d have been dead from the explosion alone.

The wound where they took his finger has soured. And his knee is shattered. I don’t know how long those will take to fix—if I can fix them at all.”

“I need to warn you,” Cam rasped.

Donelan turned and moved to stand beside his bed. He laid a hand on Cam’s shoulder, and withdrew it quickly when Cam groaned at the touch. “Rest. It will wait.”

“No. Listen. Alvior betrayed you.”

Donelan’s eyes widened. “Alvior?”

“Ruggs… told Leather John. Alvior gave them money. He wanted the throne. I’m ashamed.”

Donelan cursed. “The shame is Alvior’s, not yours. Though I disapproved of what your father did to you and Carina, he always served me loyally.”

“Alvior murdered him.”

Donelan’s eyes flashed and he strode to the door, bellowing for the leader of the Veigonn.

When the man appeared, Donelan recounted Cam’s report. “Send the Veigonn to Brunnfen.

Bring me Alvior in shackles. He has an account to make for himself to me.”

“As you wish, m’lord.”

With a backward glance toward Cam, Donelan left the room as Trygve returned through a side door with a bottle of elixir. Trygve gestured for Rhistiart to move forward from the shadows. “He’ll need someone to sit with him until he’s through the worst of it.”

“I’ll do it.”

Trygve nodded. “I thought you might. The king is grateful for your service.”

“You wouldn’t happen to need another silversmith around the palace, would you?”

Trygve chuckled. “We might yet, before all is settled.” He turned to Cam. “I need to work on your knee, and lance the poison from your hand. To spare you pain, I’m going to put you into a very deep sleep. You won’t wake for several days. Your body will handle the shock better that way. Do you understand?”

Cam nodded. “Do it.”

Trygve laid a hand on Cam’s forehead. “Sleep, now. Find a place where there is no pain, where you feel no hurt, where there is neither fever nor cold. Sleep, while your body heals.

Do not awaken until I call for you.”

As Trygve spoke, Cam felt a deep calm settle over him. His eyes became too heavy to remain open, and his limbs were too leaden to move. Trygve’s voice sounded as if he were moving backward, away from Cam, growing fainter and fainter until nothing remained except blessed darkness.

DAY 7

Tris Drayke looked out over the ruins of Lochlanimar. Wisps of smoke still rose from heaps of rubble, but most of the wreckage lay cold and silent. The ghosts of the necropolis and the spirits of the village dead who had not accepted Tris’s offer of passage had returned to their resting places. Those soldiers who were still uninjured worked in teams headed by Soterius, Senne and Rallan to sift through the broken remains of the manor house and its bailey. On Tris’s orders, they had already cordoned off the lower sections of the manor village where the plague had spread. The search progressed more quickly than expected, since so little was left standing. Still, Tris could not wait to leave the ruins.

Soterius rode up to him. “We’ve finished the quadrant. It’s as the ghosts said. No survivors.

Not much left, aside from ash.” He looked shaken. “I remember how little the air Elemental left when I fought it during the rebellion. I can’t imagine that power coupled with fire.”

Tris nodded. “I felt them die,” he said quietly. “I heard them scream. They had no chance, no chance at all.”

Soterius reined in his restless horse and looked at Tris. “I’m staying in my saddle due to sheer cussedness, and I haven’t been through half of what you have. By rights, you should be flat on your back.”

Tris shrugged. Though Fallon and Esme had done their best, Tris knew he was far from up to his full strength, either physically or magically. “You’re probably right. But the men need to see me. I’d feel like I wasn’t honoring their sacrifice if I lay abed in my tent while they’re soldiering on.” He grimaced. “And besides, both Esme and Fallon threatened to knock me out if I so much as moved to ride back to Shekerishet before tomorrow.”

Soterius grinned. “Good for them.” He sobered. “You can soothe your conscience by tending to the souls of the new casualties. We’re still losing some of the battle-wounded as well as the ones with fever.” He dropped his voice. “I came here prepared to lose men in battle. I didn’t count on plague. We’ve ended the battle. But can we contain the fever?”