Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (29 page)

Today, great silver lanterns glowed in the shadows of the colonnade. Each one showed three facets, like a rune, all painted with scenes from winter fables. There was Trimon on his travels, Talagrin at his hunting, and Larasion amid her clouds. If she didn't recognise all the myths alluded to, Branca recognised each god and goddess as she and Charoleia walked slowly along the colonnade, both of them silent amid the volubly admiring throng.

As well as the lanterns, the colonnade was adorned with pine boughs that recalled more ancient celebrations. Branca breathed in the evergreen scents and felt horribly homesick for Vanam. How were her family celebrating the Solstice? Had they received the letter she'd sent with one of Charoleia's dispatches?

The older woman finally spoke as they passed the last lantern. 'I believe I may just see a path through this maze.'

'How so?' Branca looked around to make sure no one was listening.

Charoleia lowered her voice as they left the colonnade. 'All Caladhria's news washes downstream to Relshaz. A woman called Mellitha Esterlin can help us there.'

Branca knew that name. 'But she's a wizard,' she said, uncertain.

'Quite so.' Charoleia smiled. 'She can scry and tell us all about these goings-on in Marlier without Planir having any grounds for an objection.'

'Are you sure?' Branca remembered what Aremil had told her of Tathrin's meeting with the Relshazri magewoman. That's where he'd first met the Archmage's enquiry agent. 'Isn't she a friend of Jilseth's? Won't this Mellitha tell her everything she discovers?'

Tathrin had no doubt that both women served Hadrumal's interests above all others. In the hidden recesses of his thoughts, frankly, Branca knew he feared them.

'Quite so,' Charoleia said again. 'Better yet, I believe Madam Jilseth will prove just the person to help us allay Emperor Tadriol's concerns.'

Branca stared, quite unable to fathom this.

'I'll explain, all in good time.' Charoleia began walking briskly in the direction of the inn. 'First we have to find out exactly what's afoot in Marlier.'

Chapter Nineteen

Litasse

Marlier Castle,

Winter Solstice Festival, Third Day, Evening,

Souls' Ease Night

She had waited till nearly midnight. Now the castle was quiet, after the exuberant relief of the first day of festival and before the more desperate revelry of the last to bolster everyone's spirits against the hungry days of Aft-Winter. This middle night, the longest and coldest of the year, was given over to commemorating the beloved departed even by those who seldom set foot in a shrine year round.

Not that spirits seemed particularly high this festival. Litasse had noticed guests drinking in moderation, talking quietly among themselves. What were the Marlier nobles discussing? But she had no loyal maids to listen at keyholes, to gather scraps of conversations from stairwell shadows.

Reaching an unfamiliar corridor, she hesitated. Which way now? Litasse didn't think she'd ever learn her way around this rabbits' warren. The dukes of Marlier's castle sprawled this way and that across the broad hill that it dominated.

A jousting ground had been added here; there, a further courtyard to accommodate some newly married heir in anticipation of his children. The original keep had fallen into disfavour many generations ago, so a second great hall had been built. New ducal accommodations had soon followed, not to be outdone by its splendour.

Marlier's dukes remained mindful of the perils of war. The outermost curtain wall had been rebuilt several times to enclose these successive renewals. The remnants of older fortifications were seldom entirely demolished though. Rather, they were incorporated into stables or kitchens or storehouses; whatever the castle was now deemed to lack.

After growing up in Sharlac Castle, where the four-towered keep was neatly flanked by twin turreted gatehouses marking the limits of the rectangular outer ward, all Litasse saw was disharmony and confusion.

Though she wasn't lost now, she realised with relief. This corridor led to Duchess Adarise's Hall. She cared nothing for that long-dead duchess but she knew the old keep beyond housed the castle's shrine to Poldrion.

Litasse ran along the corridor, her slippers silent on the carpet. Prudently shielded lanterns shone beside each closed door but she could have found her way without them. Only just past its full, the Greater Moon's clear light poured through the tall leaded windows. The cloudless sky was bright with stars scattered around the fading quarter of the Lesser Moon.

The door to the old keep was unlocked. Litasse stayed alert for Duke Ferdain's cat-footed night watchmen, but none prowled these echoing stone stairs. Plucking at the skirt of her black velvet gown, she hurried upwards. The longer she was absent from her chamber, the more likely she'd be missed by one of Marlier's suspiciously attentive maids.

She halted outside the shrine. What if someone else was in there? Litasse squared her shoulders. She outranked any noble lord or lady, all but Duke Ferdain and his duchess herself. Why should she explain herself, any more than she should excuse her absence to mere servants? She would remember her dead on Souls' Ease Night and Poldrion's demons could bite anyone suspecting worse of her.

There was no one in the shrine to provoke her ire. A single, massive white candle burned before Poldrion's statue. The glow burnished the ducal funeral urns on shelves running around the walls.

Litasse sat on a velvet stool. Where were the vessels holding the ashes of her younger brother Kerlin, of her dead father? Were her mother and sisters weeping over them?

Jaras's urn had been lost, his remains doubtless scattered, when the exiles sacked Sharlac Castle. How did usurping Lord Rousharn explain away that desecration to her foolish mother? Litasse ground her teeth.

But no, this wasn't a time for such grudges. It was her duty tonight to beseech Poldrion's care for her brothers and father, on that fateful journey to the door to the Otherworld. There they would beg for Saedrin's mercy as they confessed their transgressions in this life. He would open that door for the virtuous or the truly penitent and usher them across the threshold to oblivious rebirth.

All the priests agreed, those sworn to Poldrion and every other deity: when someone was reborn into the Otherworld, or born here after dying in that unknown realm, they had no recollection of any life lived before. That's what the priests said anyway. Necromancers who claimed otherwise, who claimed to speak to the dead, were beaten bloody until they recanted.

Could it be true? Would her father acknowledge his faults before Saedrin, mightiest of the gods? Or would he deny the arrogance that had driven him to attack Duke Garnot time and again, year after year, at the ultimate cost of her beloved brother Jaras's life?

Could he justify his selfish grief at that loss, shutting himself away so these rebels and exiles had been able to attack? Or was he still suffering in the darkness of the void until he repented his obstinacy? Were her guiltless brothers still loyally at his side or had they gone on ahead to find peace?

There were no answers for her here. The god leaned on his ferry pole, cloaked in black mystery. Litasse couldn't see his face and was glad of it. Most such statues resembled a gaunt, aged man but in Sharlac Castle's shrine, curious worshippers peering beneath Poldrion's hood met the bottomless gaze of a skull. Litasse had loathed it from a child.

Tears pricked her eyes. She would give anything to see the horrid thing again. The motionless statue silently rebuked her. Why say so, when she had nothing to give?

A still more unwelcome thought wormed its way into her contemplations. If she were to encompass some vengeance for Hamare and Pelletria's deaths, they would never know about it. That much was certain, whether the priests and their fables were true or if the Rationalists were in the right when they insisted folk had only one life to lead as honestly as they might.

Wouldn't that leave any such revenge as hollow as these urns that surrounded her?

'Fair festival and ease for your grief.'

Litasse gasped, her heart thumping. She sprang to her feet, affronted. 'Excuse me. I'll leave you to your devotions.'

The woman in the doorway chuckled, making no move to let her pass. 'There's no one to see us talking at this time of night.'

'We have nothing to say to each other,' Litasse retorted frostily.

She had no business with this whore. No, Ridianne was worse than a whore. As well as trading her own body for coin, she bought and sold the services of countless others, as Marlier's captain of mercenaries. Even on this sombre night, she flaunted her disgraceful occupation, wearing boots and breeches and a full-skirted coat in the Tormalin style over a lace-trimmed shirt.

'You look like a kitten bristling at a farmyard hen who's just stolen its mouse.' Closing the door, Ridianne leaned against it. 'I thought you might like to know - we've every hope that Tormalin's legions will be crossing the river Asilor into Parnilesse within days. After that, we expect they'll press on to secure the crossings over the Anock.'

'Then you will fight?' demanded Litasse.

Ridianne shrugged. 'Perhaps, perhaps not.'

'How can you expect to win if you do not fight?' cried Litasse.

If this woman wouldn't stir her fat carcass, how were her and Karn's plans ever to prosper?

Ridianne simply smiled. 'Look at that rune reversed. As long as I don't fight, I can't lose.'

'That's a fine excuse for cowardice,' Litasse shot back.

Ridianne's face hardened. 'You might be more courteous, as His Grace's guest.'

'I feel more like a prisoner,' snapped Litasse. 'I've received no letters since I arrived and whenever I have asked for a courier, I'm told no one is available. My every conversation is watched and noted.'

'You think this makes you a prisoner?' The candlelight picked out the silver in Ridianne's roughly cropped hair. The ferocious red that had earned her title of Vixen was long since faded. 'I could have you locked in a dungeon and loaded with chains, if you'd like to know the difference?' Her eyes glinted.

'You have no such authority.' Litasse took an involuntary step backwards. 'You're nothing but Duke Ferdain's mistress!'

'These past twenty years and more.' Ridianne's smile curved like the edge of a sword. 'You think that makes me nothing? I say that as one whore to another.'

Litasse blushed furiously. Was that what Marlier ladies were saying, as they whispered behind their hands? 'You have no authority over me,' she managed to say.

'Perhaps, but who's to stop me chastising you?' Ridianne raised her unkempt eyebrows. 'I am my own mistress, if you please. I haven't put my fate into any man's hands since my first husband died and his fool of a son threw me penniless out of my home. Can you say as much, for all your foolish pride?'

Litasse lifted her chin defiantly. 'Our situations are entirely different.'

'Doubtless you like to think so.' Ridianne waved a careless hand. 'But Duchess Hidarin and I understand each other. I'm not taking anything she wants for herself, and the whole world knows Ferdain and no other fathered her children.'

Litasse longed to argue with this abominable woman, but she had seen Marlier's duchess at this festival. Hidarin exchanged amiable courtesies with her husband when their duties coincided but both were more intent on celebrations and entertainments with their separate retinues. The duchess would return to her own fortified residence by the lake at Saltebre as soon as the Aft-Winter weather permitted.

Ridianne grinned as she saw Litasse struggling to find a retort. 'So kindly write to Iruvain, so he may tell Caladhria's barons that Tormalin's legions will soon be marching. I'll guarantee your letter's safe delivery.'

'Why by all that's holy should I trust you?' spat Litasse. 'You've already betrayed Lescar. You turned your coat against Triolle and Parnilesse and planted your standard alongside the Soluran. I wonder Duke Ferdain didn't have you flogged until your bones showed!'

'I have no great loyalty to Lescar.' Ridianne was unperturbed. 'My choices were simple: see my own forces cut to pieces for no one's benefit but Orlin of Parnilesse's, or yield and live to fight another day. Ferdain knows I always look out for Marlier's interests and Hidarin knows I'll see her children's interests as well protected as those of my own.'

Litasse trembled between anger and fear. 'I don't understand.'

'No, I don't suppose you do,' Ridianne agreed, 'you and Iruvain both, caught up in your passions and follies. Well, don't bother your pretty feather-head. Just write to Iruvain and tell him once Tormalin marches, now that the Soluran has definitely left the field, we have a chance to crush these rebels and see some order restored.'

'What order will that be?' Litasse laced her fingers together so tightly her hands ached.

For the first time Ridianne looked puzzled. 'You and your husband can return to Triolle and settle your differences or live apart, as you see fit. This Duke Rousharn looks strong enough to hold Sharlac and we'll divide Carluse between the three of us.'

'And the eastern dukedoms?' asked Litasse