Irons in the Fire (12 page)

"I see," Tathrin said uncertainly.

"Do you?" Gruit was sceptical. "Lescar's wars have been a weeping sore for generations. We won't come up with a cure. But if you and Aremil think you can concoct some salve, call on me. I'll see if I can make you think better of it. If I can't, we'll let Derenna and Reniack try their luck. If none of us can show up your next notion for the nonsense that last one was, perhaps there might be something we can do."

"Thank you." Tathrin grinned despite himself.

"Go and buy your maps, lad." They reached the turn that would take Tathrin back to the bookstalls by Misaen's shrine. "Enjoy your festival." Gruit walked away without further ado.

Tathrin made his way slowly back to the booksellers and managed to agree a fair price for a book charting all the major roads. It wasn't new, but it didn't look too out of date and he could make his own amendments. He walked slowly back to Master Wyess's counting-house, deep in thought.

"I thought you weren't going to the hangings." Eclan caught up with him, cheerful and flushed. Tathrin smelled liquor on his breath. "I saw you, when the debtors were having Raeponin's bell rung over them. What were you doing with Master Gruit?"

"Talking about wine," Tathrin said carefully.

Eclan shook his head. "My father says he's lost all real interest in the trade since he buried his wife and married off his daughters."

Tathrin recalled the unpleasant furrier Kierst saying the same. But Master Gruit didn't strike him as a man who'd given up on life.

"He was a wild one in his youth." Eclan laughed. "My grandma told me he tried to raise a mounted troop to go and drive the mercenaries out of Marlier when some warband took the old duchess hostage on account of not being paid. The old duke, he just said they could keep her and welcome." He rubbed his hands together. "Anyway, there's going to be cockfighting at the Golden Spur. Coming?"

Tathrin hesitated. He'd been about to go and see Aremil. He had no real taste for cockfighting, but how much more might Eclan tell him about Gruit with his tongue loosened by drink? He held up the book of maps. "I should put this safely away first."

"Till later, then." Eclan broke into a run.

Tathrin turned into the courtyard gate. As he climbed the stairs to the dormitory floor, a thought struck him. Sitting on his bed, he opened his book and leafed through the maps until he came to one depicting all of Lescar.

Aremil had long lamented the impossibility of getting news from all the dukedoms. The two of them had scant understanding of the quarrels between Sharlac and Marlier. But Lady Derenna was from Sharlac and Gruit was from Marlier. Whatever Reniack might say about a free enclave, the Duke of Parnilesse ruled the port of Carif. Aremil was born of Draximal blood and he was from Carluse himself. Between them, they represented all the dukedoms of Lescar, except Triolle. That would interest Aremil.

Putting the book in the chest under his bed, he walked thoughtfully back down the stairs. Might Gruit know some trustworthy exile from Triolle? A meagre place, it was still part of Lescar. He'd see what Aremil thought about asking the wine merchant such a question, once he'd learned all he could about him from Eclan.

Chapter Seven

Litasse

Triolle Castle, in the Kingdom of Lescar,

2
^nd
of Aft-Spring

Was it only eight days since she'd last had a chance to walk the battlements? It felt like half a season. Litasse stood motionless, gazing at the distant horizon, league after league away; reminding herself that there was a world outside these grey castle walls. The bracing wind carried a welcome breath of spring, albeit a damp and marshy one in this bog of a dukedom. It was all so unlike the high wolds of home.

"Your Grace." Valesti's voice was sharp with disapproval.

"A few moments won't leave me irredeemably weather-beaten." Litasse shot the woman a sharp look to remind her who was maid and who was mistress. Then she offered an apologetic smile. With so few allies in the castle, she'd be a fool to alienate any of them. Especially one who kept her secrets. This was her home now. She mustn't forget it. "Forgive me--I've been shut indoors too long."

The spring festivities had been tiresome enough, as she spent endless hours in tedious conversation with Triolle's vassals' ladies. Still, there had been dancing and banquets and musicians and travelling players. She'd had new gowns and gifts and been paid countless compliments. Even Iruvain had been pleased with everything she had arranged, from the festival garlands for the great hall to the dishes she had chosen for each table.

But now the entertainments were over and the guests had gone and even the minor celebrations when the season turned from Aft-Spring to For-Summer were forty-two long days away. She was ticking each morning off in her almanac. Meantime, every day dragged as long and joyless as the whole of Aft-Winter. The most exciting thing the stewards had reported today was moths infesting a remote linen closet.

"His Grace your husband will be expecting you." As Valesti spoke, the clock housed in the tower opposite chimed and the brass arrowhead marking the daytime hours slid downwards to the fourth sunburst on the sloping scale.

Litasse heard quacking floating across the wide mere that flanked this side of the castle. Peering over the parapet, she saw wind stirring dense clumps of reeds, waterfowl dabbling around them. A dog barked, racing towards a huddle of birds on the steeply sloping bank. A man in a maroon doublet shouted a reprimand, the wind snatching his words away. The birds were already taking wing to soar across the water. Green grebes, Triolle's emblem, so much more elegant in life than in the carvings of the castle and on the pale yellow flags flapping above the gatehouse.

"Iruvain's still exercising his new hound." As Litasse pointed, the sun struck fire from her gold and garnet rings. "We can take the long way round."

She began walking, careful where she put her slippered feet. Winter's rains had left a treacherous film of green scumming the uneven stones.

"Tell the castellan I want this walkway scoured clean," she said with sudden decisiveness. "I wish to be able to take the air up here without needing hobnailed boots."

"The gardens below satisfied the late duchess, Your Grace."

"I am not the late duchess," Litasse said tartly.

"Indeed, Your Grace." Valesti's tone was unreadable.

Litasse looked down into the broad bailey ringed by this massive curtain wall. From the outside, the castle appeared unchanged for generations. A ten-towered fortress of rugged stone, it had the mere on one side and a rock-cut ditch on the other. The only entrance was defended by a murderous bastion manned by the best troops Triolle's dukes could afford.

Within the walls, though, Triolle's successive duchesses had insisted on some comfort. The towers around the curtain wall originally had just one room on each level, lit only by arrow slits. Now they had all been rebuilt to offer separate bedchambers and private parlours, and their inner faces had been refashioned with wide diamond-paned windows.

Looking outward, the cautious narrow slits were untouched. Duchess or not, Litasse had to don hood and cloak on stormy days to cross from her own apartments to her husband's tower, even to reach the dining hall. The lofty wall walk remained the only way to move between each turret without crossing the open bailey. If invaders ever conquered the bastion, Triolle's defenders could still make them fight for every room and every stair of each and every tower.

If that should happen, Litasse decided, enemy soldiers trampling the garden that her husband's mother had laid out would have her blessing, so that no future bride would be expected to walk in pointless circles following the geometric paths of coloured gravel curling between knee-high hedges. Fragrant shrubs and clusters of herbs dotted the dark earth, waiting for the first spring flowers. At least the former duchess had left her mark on the castle. What would Litasse's legacy be?

"How diligently do the townsfolk remember Duke Gerone and Duchess Casatia now?" Litasse looked across the mere to the walls of Triolle Town. Beyond the ramparts, shingled roofs huddled close. One building stood out amid the twisted streets. Circular, it was tiled in vibrant blue and yellow, the pattern of Drianon's wheat sheaves glowing in the thin sunshine.

"There are always fresh garlands laid before their funerary urns, Your Grace," Valesti confirmed.

Hammering echoed across the glassy green water and Litasse noticed figures moving between the crenellations of the town walls. The militia must be repairing the wooden hoardings after the winter storms, lest spring and summer bring man-made destruction. She had better go and hear what tidings the freshening winds had brought Master Hamare.

Movement caught her eye. Duke Iruvain was striding across the bailey, the young dog wayward at his heels. His duties always seemed to leave him time to indulge his own pleasures, she thought resentfully. Everyone excused him, saying he was so young to be shouldering the rule of the dukedom. He had seen twenty-three summers to her twenty-two, and yet everyone said she was lucky their mothers had made this marriage before she grew too old to be a bride.

Seeing Iruvain enter a doorway below, she walked more quickly.

"Your Grace." The man-at-arms eating a meat pasty on the top of the Messenger Tower choked. His coughing startled the dozing pigeons into petulant fluttering against the bars of their cages.

"The door, if you please." Litasse favoured him with her sweetest smile as she discreetly twitched up her poppy-red gown to keep her lace-trimmed underskirts out of the muck.

"Of course." He sprang forward.

"Your Grace." The men on the floor below were as startled as the sentry. One of them swept the rune bones they'd been gambling with under a chair.

"Good morning." Perfectly poised, Litasse swept through to the stairs beyond.

Valesti followed, demure in brown gown and linen cap. When they reached the landing below, her manner was anything but meek. "Your Grace! Your hair!"

Litasse stood still while the maid's deft fingers subdued whatever wisps the wind had teased out of her crown of black plaits. "Well?" She arched one finely plucked brow, her blue eyes challenging.

Valesti nodded with limited approval. "Fresh air has improved Your Grace's complexion."

"Let's hope my lord and husband appreciates that." Whatever Iruvain might think, Litasse was pleased. The reflection in her looking glass that morning had been pale as whey. She moderated her smile as they reached the foot of the next flight of stairs.

"Your Grace." The man-at-arms on duty stiffened in salute and opened the door. "Master Hamare, Her Grace Duchess Litasse requires you."

Hamare bowed low, nevertheless continuing his conversation with a lean young man with light hair. "Did you ever find out who they were?"

The youth shrugged. "A governess and a tutor who'd been turned out when Lord Berneth's children outgrew their schoolroom. They were on their way to beg charity from some half-Tormalin cousins in Solland."

"We may yet find a use for them. Well done, Karn." Master Hamare, a slender man of no great height, leaned across the paper-strewn table to find a pen and make a note. "There's no sign as yet that this business with the bridge is anything but an opportunist attack by mercenaries?"

"None," the young man assured him.

Litasse was untying the ribbon securing her short cloak. She handed it to Valesti. "You may return to your duties in my chambers."

"As you wish, Your Grace."

To Litasse's surprise, the maidservant smiled and hurried to the door, slipping through it just as the youth, Karn, was about to close it behind him.

"Hamare." Before Litasse could say anything more, boots thudded on the boards outside. "I hope he hasn't brought that half-trained pest of a dog," she muttered.

"Let's hope." Hamare's quick smile was gone by the time the man-at-arms opened the door for Duke Iruvain.

"Thank you. See that we are not disturbed." As the door closed, the duke brushed a kiss against Litasse's rose-petal cheek. "My lady wife, good day to you."

Leaving Litasse to seat herself by the round table, Iruvain walked over to study the tapestry map hanging on the far wall. "Hamare, what's this new quarrel between Draximal and Parnilesse?" he demanded as he bent to look more closely at the embroidered border dividing the two easternmost dukedoms.

"The Duchess of Draximal visited several Tormalin noble houses during the course of Aft-Winter and For-Spring, all of which are well placed to lend support if Dalasorian horsemen resume their raids on Draximal once the weather clears." Hamare sounded sceptical. "However, Her Grace was also accompanied by all her daughters."

"She can't marry off the rest until she has the eldest settled." Iruvain considered this. "What's she planning that's put Parnilesse's nose so far out of joint?"

"Duke Orlin of Parnilesse has learned that Duke Secaris of Draximal proposes to wed his eldest daughter to a Tormalin prince, the Sieur Den Breche, handing over a sizeable portion of Draximal's flax harvest as her dowry," Hamare explained. "Which leaves Orlin of Parnilesse standing at the castle gate, empty cap in hand, with his own flax and linen unsold."