Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (14 page)

'
You can tell me what they have to say for themselves when I let you know what Charoleia's advocate advises.'

Without so much as goodbye, Branca was gone; her voice and her intangible presence.

Aremil looked sadly around the high-roofed hall. Would she ever join him here again to discuss books and plays and songs and all the interests they had found they shared, when she had undertaken to teach him Artifice? Would they enjoy those debates prompted by some clash between his sheltered life and the hard truths of her upbringing?

Would they ever solve the puzzle of this place? Neither Branca nor the other adepts focused their Artifice through such an illusion. But from the outset Aremil had found himself in this hall. He knew Kerith disapproved of what he saw as frivolity. He knew Jettin merely mocked. But Branca had been intrigued, even allowing Aremil's fond imagination to dress her in brocaded silk. She had so wanted to know what aspects of Artifice this place might reveal.

No longer, it would appear. Shadows gathered in the aisles as the windows turned to night. Torches appeared in brackets on the pillars. Aremil sighed and closed his eyes.

He opened them to see the modest dining hall of Satheron Manor. Plain glass windows admitted wintry light to illuminate the whitewashed walls. Dark above, a hammer-beam oak roof was decorated with carved leaves. He sat on the shallow dais by the wide fireplace at one end. Massive logs smouldered, doing little to soften the chill. His head ached.

'Well?' Failla waited expectantly beyond the little table by his elbow.

'Nothing of significance from Kerith,' he said briefly.

The scholar had retreated to Carluse now that Master Gruit's crimes had destroyed his standing in Abray.

'And Tathrin?' Failla twisted a plaited gold bracelet around her wrist. 'Does his errand prosper?'

'He says it's too early too tell.' Aremil saw his own exasperation reflected in Failla's eyes. 'But the captain-general said he thought this was a sound stratagem,' he added, as much for his own reassurance as hers, 'when they discussed it in Triolle.'

Tathrin had been lucky to catch Evord there. The Soluran was all set to march north to the Great West Road with his remaining force and renegades could take their chances attacking him if they wished.

'No bad news at least.' Failla glanced over her shoulder, smoothing her demure grey gown. 'If you're ready, they're here.'

'They're early.' Aremil tried to sit straighter in his chair. 'Can you fetch wine and cakes after you help me to the parlour?'

After the trials of the journey, he was still too weak, too subject to unexpected cramps, to manage his crutches.

'Duchess Aphanie wishes to see you in here.' From Failla's tone that was no request. 'With her retainers at the far end of the hall, so they can bear witness even if they cannot hear what's said.'

'What does she think I'll do behind closed doors?' Exasperated, Aremil leaned forwards as Failla tidied his cushions. 'Are her daughters with her, and Carluse's girls?'

Failla nodded. 'With Lord Rousharn and Lady Derenna.'

Aremil sighed. 'Let's see what they've cooked up between them.'

It had seemed so simple back in Vanam. They all wanted to end the dukes' tyranny. Whatever their differences, they agreed on that. But even before the fighting was done, those different reasons had begun driving wedges between them. Now their earlier accord with these noble allies was split as surely as a log riven with hammer and iron spikes.

The hall door edged open and Lord Cullough entered as Failla carried chairs from the dais's long table to the fireside.

Aremil watched Duchess Aphanie leaning on Lord Cullough's sturdy arm. She was solidly built, her dark hair copiously threaded with silver. She wore a high-necked gown of unrelieved black and her jewellery was mourning jet. Her eyes were as hard and dark as the stones, with no hint of weeping.

Lord Rousharn strode confidently at her side; as tall as Tathrin, broad-shouldered and straight-limbed. Though his sons and daughters were of marriageable age, his full head of dark hair was barely brushed with grey. Soberly gowned in the same green broadcloth as her husband's well-tailored doublet, Lady Derenna escorted the four fatherless girls of Carluse and Sharlac.

As Duchess Aphanie stepped onto the dais, she turned to nod to the small knot of leather-armoured men who had followed her into the hall. Still vigilant, they sat on the benches beside the door and grudgingly accepted tankards of ale from a manservant.

Aphanie glanced contemptuously at Failla. 'Get rid of her. My daughters will not breathe the same air as this whore.'

Before Aremil could answer, Failla's curtsey conveyed utter disdain for the noblewoman. 'Your Grace.' She smiled kindly at Garnot's daughters before she stepped down to the floor of the hall and departed through a side door.

'Please, be seated.' Aremil took refuge in convention. 'I trust your journey wasn't too tiring?'

'Don't pretend concern for my welfare.' Aphanie scowled at him as she took a chair.

Lord Rousharn sat beside her while Lord Cullough bridged the gap, half-booted feet planted wide. A long-standing correspondent with Rousharn and his wife on matters of natural philosophy, he was also known to Charoleia and so had cautiously agreed to host this meeting in the interests of peace.

Aremil was relieved to see Lady Derenna seat the orphaned girls at the high table. They all looked frightened and miserable and he doubted this conversation would offer much comfort. He realised Derenna had lost weight, sunken cheeks making her expression more severe than ever.

'Let's be done with this masquerade.' Duchess Aphanie folded her arms. 'What indignity do you intend for us now?'

'Your Grace, you requested this meeting.' Aremil glanced at Lord Rousharn.

The nobleman's letter had insisted that Aremil accede to Aphanie's stipulation that they meet within Sharlac's boundaries. The duchess insisted that Aremil come in person or forfeit his role as intermediary between the remaining dukes and the exiles and rebels.

Had Lord Rousharn told her that Aremil's physical infirmities made him wholly unfit for such responsibility? He never hid his own opinion on that score.

So determination to prove the arrogant noble wrong had goaded Aremil into making this journey. Along with Charoleia's insistence that finding some settlement with the dukes was an increasingly urgent necessity.

'Have you retrieved my son Jaras's ashes?' the duchess demanded. 'No, of course you haven't.'

Had she come here simply to force a quarrel? Aremil wasn't about to gratify her.

'Your Grace, I outlined your present choices in my letters.' He addressed Duchess Aphanie with careful calm. 'Those manors you brought to your marriage remain your property, to provide for you and your daughters.'

Now that Charoleia had assured Aremil that those manors were too widely scattered, and their tenant lords too cautious, to support any uprising to restore the duchess to her castle.

'Since at least two of them are now vacant, you may live in whichever you choose,' he continued, 'or you may go to Tormalin, where Emperor Tadriol has offered you his protection. I've no doubt you'd also find a welcome in Caladhria if you wish to go there.'

Aphanie was most welcome to follow her late husband's vassals and those lords who'd abandoned her dowry manors across the Rel.

'What of my husband's property?' The duchess looked at him with burning hatred. 'My children's plundered inheritance?'

'Madam,' Aremil interrupted curtly, 'the dukedom is no more. Sharlac will be one province in a peaceful Lescar. Estates that your husband confiscated will be returned to their rightful owners. His hereditary properties will be divided among however many of his blood we can find.'

Initially Aremil had baulked at that suggestion. Then Charoleia had listed all the outer branches of Duke Moncan's family tree. The more hands stretched out for festival bounty, she pointed out, the fewer coins landed in each one. None of Moncan's remote cousins would inherit enough of his land or revenues to fuel ambition for more. Aremil had agreed, even though the tactic reminded him how dukes had sowed division down the fractious generations.

'So you wash your hands of us?' Aphanie was still glaring at him. 'How long before some mob hacks off our heads and rapes my innocent daughters? Should we fear some knife in the night? Poison, to mimic some wasting disease?'

'Wasn't poison His Grace of Parnilesse's preferred choice? When he had waited too long for his father to die?' Aremil was provoked into speaking too fast. As he felt spittle slip from his mouth, he saw Lord Rousharn turn away, repelled.

'I will not entrust my daughters or my own safety to the likes of you.' Aphanie looked equally disgusted. 'I am elevating Lord Rousharn to be Duke of Sharlac,' she proclaimed.

That was scarcely a surprise. Rousharn had been arguing that Sharlac needed a regent since their first meeting. Derenna had been quick to suggest her husband should serve. Since they had sheltered Aphanie and her children, Rousharn had styled himself the duchess's castellan.

Aremil and Tathrin had laughed, mocking the title as hollow as the burned-out shell of Sharlac Castle. It wasn't so amusing now. As Aremil struggled to clear his throat, he recalled his conversation with Branca. Once he was certain of his voice, he managed a half-smile.

'On whose authority, madam?'

Aphanie looked incredulous. 'I am dowager duchess.'

'My lord?' Doubtful, Aremil turned to Lord Cullough. 'Could such a decree have any legal standing?'

'I can't think of any precedent,' said Cullough, clearly troubled. 'Such circumstances have never arisen--'

'I must propose a convocation of Sharlac's nobility, on the Tormalin model,' Lord Rousharn said swiftly, 'to confirm any such elevation.'

'That would seem rational,' Cullough said slowly.

Rationalism: the favoured philosophy of those Lescari nobles who found scholarship a safer and more rewarding occupation than the pursuit of ducal favour and advancement.

Rousharn and Derenna had long been foremost among such intellectuals. Indeed, their avowed Rationalism had persuaded many Sharlac and Draximal vassals to stay by their own firesides when their overlords raised their battle standards.

So Aremil wasn't going to get very far arguing against this apparently logical proposal. As a new notion occurred to him, he stifled a crooked grin and addressed Duchess Aphanie.

'Then you are abdicating all your daughters' claims.' He nodded sagely. 'I am glad of it, for their sakes.' He turned to Lord Cullough again. 'Presumably anyone with a claim to Duke Moncan's honours will also have to step aside?' Every single one on Charoleia's long list.

'That would seem necessary.' The crease between Cullough's brows was deepening.

'You agree to my husband's elevation?' Derenna spoke up from her seat at the end of the table.

'We undertook to remove the dukes to save Lescar from their oppression.' Aremil looked straight at her. Charoleia always advised that when dodging a question. 'We never intended replacing that tyranny with our own.'

Is that what you intend? Now his gaze silently challenged her.

'There must be authority,' she insisted, 'otherwise we risk Parnilesse's anarchy.'

Was that guilt he saw in her eyes? Or fear that her commitment to the obligations of rank had led her down a false path? Before Aremil could decide, Derenna turned to hear a whispered question from Garnot's younger daughter.

'Summon your convocation if you must,' Duchess Aphanie told Lord Cullough scornfully. 'Meanwhile,
Duke
Rousharn will stand as my daughters' guardian, without prejudice to their claims to their father's honours.'

'I also stand as guardian to Duke Garnot's orphaned daughters,' Rousharn assured the grey-haired noble more courteously.

'Won't their elder sisters, and their brothers by marriage, have something to say about that?' Aremil wondered aloud.

Though those households had been among the first to flee for Caladhria when Carluse Town was besieged. That prompted another thought.

'This convocation of nobles,' enquired Aremil, 'how many would need to attend to make their decisions binding on all the rest?'

'You're just making difficulties,' snapped Aphanie.

'No, that's a pertinent question.' Lord Cullough rubbed the back of his neck. 'This will need careful consideration.'

With an exasperated exclamation, Aphanie rose to her feet. 'This meeting is concluded.' Snapping her fingers at Derenna, she stepped down from the dais.

'My lord. Lord Aremil.' Lord Rousharn swiftly bowed to them both and hurried after Aphanie. Derenna was still encouraging her confused charges to follow.

As Aremil watched the women scurry down the hall, he chose his words carefully. 'Was Her Grace always so . . . confident?'

'She was never much of anything,' Lord Cullough said frankly, 'which suited Duke Moncan very well.'

Aremil didn't pursue that. It was enough to see Lord Cullough's misgivings.

The rotund nobleman heaved himself out of his chair. 'I shall see them safely on their way. Then you and I should talk further.'