Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (7 page)

His words stung, stung because she knew them to be true, because she’d seen the evidence of the invader’s retribution lining the roads across the province, or the walls of the towns.  She’d laid a few of the poor souls to rest, cut them down to give their broken bodie
s at least the blessing of the Goddess.  But all too well she could picture the scene Davyn was describing.

“Everytime you kill one, they kill a hundred.  They’re beasts.”

“And that is why I fight them, to defeat them.  To save our people from slavery, none of the salved should ever be slaves, so says…”

“So says the Goddess yes,” Davyn interrupted her.  “You can’t defeat them though, you can’t save them from
slavery.  You and your father, you had your chance and you lost. You lost it all at Bledrag field.  Now just leave it to the people who’ve lived here all our lives, let us handle it. By the Goddess just let us survive.”

“Handle it
?” she aped back at him.  “Handle it how? By becoming the Governor’s lackeys? Let me guess. What fat freehold did Nordag give your father? The right to lord it over the others, to be slavemaster to a generation of slaves.”

“My father is no fool, not like yours was.  You know they say that’s t
he only reason why old King Bulveld let him have this province. That in his madness he somehow knew it was past saving.  Why else would he trust it to a hack of an old general rather than his own son?”

“That’s not fair,” Niarmit snapped back, her vision blurred by tears even as Davyn’s rising anger gave him strength to strike.  He lunged. She saw it late and ducked but not fast enough to evade the blade entirely. It ran through her left sleeve, scoring a deep cut across her upper arm.  She twisted quickly
after that, stepped away as he tried to follow.  At the sight of her blood dripping redly onto the stones where once they had held a lover’s tryst, he hesitated again.

“Niarmit, I’m sorry.”

“For what? The insults or the fact that you have to kill me ?”

“For both, for everything.  Nordag’s death has brought more tears than you ever could have imagined,” he grimaced.  “More tears shed for the death of a corrupt ogre than ever for poor Prince Matteus.”

“Or his daughter?”

“I have no choice,” he pleaded.

She decided then. “Very well, no more of my people will die cursing my name.”  He looked at her in surprise as she dropped her hands to her side, waiting meekly for his blow.  She had it all planned.  He was a bad fighter.  The way he threw his weight on one leg showed whence his attack would come from.  She would lean the other way, grab his wrist as his blade flew past and slam it across her knee.  A kick to the groin and then the solar plexus would incapacitate him and, as he moaned through the pain she would be standing over him sword in hand.  But she would not kill him, she would let him have some blood stained clothing that may convince others he had succeeded in his mission and then she would leave, cross the Hadran mountains and never once return to a land that wanted neither her nor her father’s memory.  Yes she had it all planned.

Yet still he hesitated.

“Go on.”

“Niarmit,
I never wanted this.  I loved you, always loved you.”  The tears were flowing down his cheeks as he misconstrued her apparent surrender.  She grew weary of the charade, armed or not he had as much chance of overcoming her as Kaylan had of becoming a priestess of the Goddess.

The sword wavered. He looked away.  Too late she recognised the rustle of the bushes the soft sound of Kaylan’s feet arriving at speed.

“No,” she screamed.  “Kaylan, no!”

The sword dropped from
Davyn’s fingers.  He looked down at the bloodied point of Kaylan’s blade which had burst through his chest.  Then with darkening eyes he looked up at her in surprise. “Niarmit?” he said, then grunted as the blade was pulled free.  He fell forward to reveal Kaylan, his face full of concern.

“My Lady, are you muc
h hurt? Your arm? I am sorry I tarried, but I didn’t want to disturb you, and then when you were gone so long I came and I heard voices.”  The words tumbled out as Kaylan reached forward over Davyn’s body anxious to assess his mistress’s wound.

She hit him, hard.  Her fist connected with his jaw sending him sprawling across the stones.  He only looked at
her quizzically, mouthing, “my Lady?” as she rained blows upon his shoulders striking blindly through a mist of tears.  He curled into a foetal ball until the deluge stopped and she crawled over to Davyn’s body.  She dragged her former lover into her lap, cradling him, smoothing the damp hair across his head.  “I’m sorry, Davyn.  I’m sorry.”

Kaylan gathered himself and retreated to the edge of the forest, sitting watchful and alert, but just out of line of sight of his inconsolable mistress.

Kimbolt looked up as the door to the messroom creaked open.  A young girl slipped shyly into the room bearing a tray of bread and cut meat.

“Oh,” she said. ” I didn’t realise you would be here.”

Kimbolt looked at her anew, this teenage servant girl, with the long dark hair, pale skin and unnervingly clear blue eyes. “Well,” he said.  “
I am a Captain and this is the captain’s mess, so it can’t be entirely unexpected.”

Her brow creased as she tried to work out how far he was teasing her.  She came hesitantly forward, the tray infront of her. “There was so
me food left over from the Castellan’s table,” she explained hastily.  “My mother… my mother, she said take it to the captains’ mess, she said.  She said ‘no reason why such good quality leavings should go to waste, them Captains deserve it.’”

Kimbolt tried to hide his grin.  “I’m sure
your mother said all of that, Hepdida.”

His use of her name brought an uncertain smile to her lips.  “I’m glad it’s just you, Sir,” she confided
as she set the tray down on the table.  “I wouldn’t want you to have to share it.”

He suppressed
a guffaw, there was enough cured ham and venison for all four captains and quite a few of the sergeants as well.  “Honestly, girl.  Anyone would think you were trying to feed me up for slaughter.”

She stepped back and pushed a recalcitrant curl of hair back behind one ear before clasping both hands demurely in front of her crisp white apron.  “My mother says food’s important.  It’s the way to a man’s heart, she says, through his stomach that is.”

Kimbolt looked up from the prime slices of pork, beef and game that were very far from being offcuts. “To a man’s heart?” he repeated evenly.

She looked to one side and then back again. The tip of her tongue darted nervously over her lips.  She went to push back the lock of hair that was already firmly in place.  Then, after a quick look in every direction except at him, she let her eyes meet his and hold them in a steady gaze.

“You know, sir, you know I’ve always….”

“Hepidida, no!” he exclaimed
, raising his hand to emphasise the order.  “Don’t say….”

She was not to be stopped.  “The others, them other servant girls, they say it
’s not my imaginings. They say they see the way you look at me.  I see it too. You look at me different.”

“That’s not….”

“You’re kind. You know my name. You remembered my birthday.”

“That was nothing,” he snapped.  “I just remembered you telling me, the day before.”

She stepped quickly towards his chair, kneeling in supplication and reaching for his hands. “I know there’s a world of difference between us, sir.  I don’t want to cause trouble for you with the Castellan, but you must know how I feel.”

He stood up rapidly, tipping the chair up and shook off her hands.  “Hepdida, gather yourself.  This will not do.”

“Oh sir, I know how it is, you a captain, me a common servant.  But I can still…”  She hesitated at the last.  Her tongue tip flicked across her lips again.  “But I can still be a…. a comfort to you.”

“Get out,” he shrieked, more unnerved by an adolescent throwing herself at him than he had ever been by a platoon of orcs.

The extremity of his reaction confused her at first.  When he repeated the order, with more cold contempt and a petulant stamp of his foot, she stood up wide eyed.  “Don’t you like me?  Don’t you want me?”

He clutched at the questions, seized in them as a route out of this mire as he launched into a brutal denial.  “No, Hepdidia I d
on’t.  I think you’re hideous. Now get out.”

At last she obeyed him, fleeing with a violent sob scarcely noticing that she practically bowled Bishop Udecht over as he came into the messroom.
  The cleric looked after her retreating back with an appreciative glance before turning to Kimbolt with a grin, “Woman trouble, eh Captain?”

Kimbolt stood stiffly to attention, his face crimson with rage and embarrassment.  “I am sorry you
r reverence that you had to see that. It was unforgiveable.”

Udecht gave the Captain’s
apology a nonchalant wave of dismissal and approached instead the plate of plenty that Hepdida had left.  Mesmerised by the food, he said nothing and seized on a slice of pork and crammed it hungrily into his mouth, even as his other hand reached out for some beef to chase the half chewed pig down his throat.  Midway through the second mouthful he grew conscious of KImbolt’s incredulous stare and tried to slow his unmannered guzzling mid gulp, with the effect that he succumbed to a choking fit. Coughing and spluttering helplessly, he waved at the carafe of mead until Kimbolt poured and handed him a cup which the Bishop drained in one gulp. 

“That’s better,”
Udecht pronounced to the punctuation of a deep belch.  “One forgets how hungry one can get in this place.”

“Er… yes your reverence,” Kimbolt replied uncertainly.  While wel
l known to enjoy his food, the Bishop had always seemed most fastidious about such things as table manners.

Udecht gave him a shrewd stare, reading in the Captain’s confused expression the concern that his unaccustomed gluttony was generating. He put the cup down carefully, working his fingers over each other.  “Forgi
ve me Captain, Kimbolt isn’t it?”

“Yes your reverence,” Kimbolt gave a puzzled
acknowledgement for his name was well known to the Bishop after a six month tour of duty in Sturmcairn.

“Just so, just so,” Udecht mused, toying with the cup a moment.  Then he pointed suddenly at Kimbolt saying.
“Vos amici mei mandabo, Kimbolt!”

It was odd, for though the words were the most unfamiliar thing that the strangely altered Bishop had yet done, they were also instantly and immediately re-assuring to the startled Captain. 
He felt soothed and relaxed by the presence of his good friend Bishop Udecht.  When the Bishop smiled he felt like laughing, when the bishop frowned he was both concerned and yet confident the Bishop would explain the wisest course of action.  Udecht watched him for a moment, as the Captain unconsciously mirrored his gestures, waiting expectantly for whatever words of wisdom his good friend would share.

“You
know Captain, Kimbolt,” he began.  “I find the cold and age are both catching up with me and my memory is not what it should be.  I have quite forgotten what the password for this evening is.”

“Oh, you could always ask the C
astellan for it,” Kimbolt hastened to offer a solution, but was then gripped by anxiety when his good friend frowned deeply at the suggestion.

“My nephew though
, is such an inflexible and petty man.”  At the description, Kimbolt wondered why he had never before seen Prince Thren’s failings as clearly as the Bishop described them.  “He would make such fun of me for forgetting, and doubtless make me serve some punishment.”  The Bishop went quiet before suddenly wheedling to Kimbolt.  “Couldn’t you tell me?”

“Of course,” Kimbolt began, but then some shadow fell across his certainty.  He looked away, trying to pin point the elusive thought that had darkened his happy security. 

Suddenly his chin was caught by the Bishop’s hand as Udecht gently turned him back to face his good friend and look him in the eye as he repeated the question.  “Couldn’t you tell me?”

“Kopetcha,” the word sprang to Kimbolt’s lips.  “Kopetcha is the password.”

Udecht’s eyebrows rose and he murmured with a nod, “his mother’s name.  How like the boy!”

KImbolt was pleased to have been of service to his good friend, though something troubled him still.  He couldn’t place the thought, but Udecht supplied an answer.  “I sense your
fear, Captain.  I feel it too. Something is amiss.  I have heard rumours.”

“What rumours
?”

“I believe ou
r Castellan harbours some ill intent.”

“Prince Thren, no?” Kimbolt tr
ied to shake his head, but the Bishop held him still, his piercing gaze beseeching Kimbolt’s support.  “What would you have me do?”

“Perhaps
it might be a good time to pray?”

Kimbolt’s religious observances had ne
ver been particularly devout. The army as his master always took precedence over the Goddess as his mistress.  However, this suggestion of prayer seemed an excellent and timely idea. “Together, your reverence?”