Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (33 page)

“When did it happen?”

He frowned. “Highness?”

“When madness supplanted mere cruelty.”

His face froze as if she had struck him, a rigid fury seizing him from head to toe. Davoka’s pony gave a loud snort as she walked him within a spear throw of the Fief Lord.

“I believe,” Darnel grated, “Al Sorna has returned to the Realm, and no longer enjoys the protection of the Sixth Order. A challenge can be made and accepted. Tell me, would you prefer his head or his heart as a tribute?”

“It is my fervent hope, my lord, that you make such a challenge. Then I’ll be able to choose my tribute from whatever remains of you. Perhaps I’ll send it to Marbellis as a small token of recompense.”

He stood still for a moment, frozen in his anger, face quivering before he mastered himself. “I should like, Highness,” he said, his voice a soft rasp, “for you to remember the words you have said to me today. I should like you to remember them for a very long time.”

“Then I regret to tell you, my lord, that I intend to forget them just as soon as you are out of my sight. A circumstance I expect you to bring about forthwith.”

He could refuse, she had no power to command him. She could only expect. It was usually enough, but would it suffice for this handsome madman?

He closed his eyes, breathing softly, a faint whisper coming from his lips, “Faith save me, but I had to try.” When he opened his eyes there was no more anger, not even any cruelty, just numb acceptance. He gave a bow, formal and correct in every way, turned to march back to his horse, mounting and riding away without another word.

“Send me after him,”
Davoka said, watching Darnel and his knights crest a rise and disappear from view.
“It’ll be done tonight. His heart stops when he sleeps. No blame will arise.”

“No,”
Lyrna said, walking back to Surefoot.

“I know men like him, Lerhnah. I’ve killed enough to know them very well. That one won’t stop until he’s made you bleed.”

Lyrna mounted the pony, meeting Davoka’s eyes and giving a firm shake of her head. The Lonak woman gritted her teeth but said no more.

“Lord Marshal Al Smolen,” Lyrna called, the Guard commander quickly riding to her side with a smart salute. “A change of course, my lord. We make for the holdfast of House Banders.”

T
hey saw the cathedral spires first, jutting over the crest as they led their horses up the hill. “Faith!” Arken breathed, gazing at the cathedral as they reached the top. The two spires rose from the centre of the city like twin arrows. “How tall are they?”

Reva replied with a quote from the priest, “Tall enough to match the Father’s glory.”

Alltor was another place she had never been, but the priest had told her many stories of the city named for the World Father’s first and greatest prophet.
A whole city built in the Father’s honour, a wonder of marble and beauty when it first rose, shaming the wooden hovels of the Asraelins.
Looking at the city stretched out before her, Reva couldn’t quell a suspicion that the priest’s description may have been coloured by the assumption she would never set eyes on the place. It was smaller than Varinshold, confined within its walled island in the middle of the Coldiron River, and not quite so smelly, at least from this distance. But she saw no wonder in it, just a jumble of stone buildings under a thick haze of smoke from a thousand chimneys. Only the cathedral came close to matching the visions the priest had conjured in her girlish mind, and even that was a soot-blackened shadow of her imaginings, the marble of the spires darkened from centuries of windblown grime.

“Do you have family, here?” Arken asked. Recent days had seen his questions become more frequent, and irksome. But she found herself unable to lie to him, her answers brief but always truthful.

“Yes.” She climbed onto Snorter’s saddle and started down the slope. “An uncle.”

“Will we be staying with him?” She could hear the hope in his voice. Sleeping in the open every night had dispelled any boyish notions of grand adventure, and the prospect of room and board was no doubt very welcome.

“I hope not,” she replied. “I don’t think he’d be pleased to see me.”

It was market day and the guards on the gate were too busy collecting dues from the hawkers to bother with them much. Reva had hidden her weapons under a blanket strapped across Snorter’s back and Arken kept his knife concealed within his shirt. They rode through without incident but were soon snared by the throng of the market. Reva had to dismount to calm Snorter as he began to rear, nostrils flaring with the stench of so many people. “Don’t like it do you?” she said, holding a carrot to his mouth. “Not bred for cities, eh? Me either.”

An hour of shoving and squeezing bought freedom from the crowd, delivering them to a maze of narrow streets bordering the market square. They found an inn with a stable after what seemed like an age of aimless wandering. Snorter and Arken’s squat horse, named Bumper for his less-than-comfortable back, were ensconced in the stable boy’s care whilst Reva paid five coppers for a room she could share with her brother.

“Brother eh?” the innkeeper said with a knowing leer. “Doesn’t look like you.”

“You won’t look like you if I let him have his way for five minutes,” Reva replied. “How do we get to the Fief Lord’s manor from here?”

The man seemed unruffled by the threat, merely chuckling a little as he said, “Just keep headin’ for the spires, you’ll find it. Stands opposite the cathedral. Petitioning day’s not till Feldrian though.”

“We’ll wait.”

His grin broadened. “Then I’ll need another two days in advance.”

She left the weapons in the room with Arken, cautioning him not to open the door too wide if the innkeeper came sniffing, then went to find the manor. As instructed she kept the spires ahead of her, marvelling ever more at their height, until the streets fell away to reveal the great central square. It was paved from end to end in granite, clouds of pigeons flocking and breaking continually on the stones, the cathedral rising on her left, the largest structure she had ever seen, so tall she wondered it could remain upright. On the opposite side of the square stood a large three-storey building of many windows, surrounded by a ten-foot wall topped with steel spikes. Pairs of guards patrolled the walls and a squad of five manned the main gate. She counted four archers on the roof. Clearly her uncle was very conscious of his security.

She circled the manor several times, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, counting another four archers on the back roof and four guards on the rear gate. The walls were in an excellent state of repair and there was a good twenty yards between them and the nearest cover. The guards were alert and changed at intervals of two hours. There would be a drain within the grounds allowing access from the sewers, but she had a strong suspicion whoever had care of her uncle’s person would ensure that too was guarded.

No way in,
she concluded, perching herself on the cathedral steps with an apple she had purchased from a nearby vendor.

“Here for the petitions?” he asked her as she took a bite. “Don’t have the look of a city girl, way you’re staring at everything.”

“My stepmother claimed the farm when Dadda died,” she replied, munching. “The sow won’t give me and my brother our share.”

“Father save us from greedy women,” he said. “A tip for you, don’t appeal to the lord, appeal to the whore.”

“The whore?”

“Aye, he’s only got the one these days. An Asraelin no less. She does much of his thinking for him, and they say she’s a fair judge, whore and heretic though she is.”

She favoured him with a smile. “My thanks, old fellow.”

“I’m not so old,” he replied in mock outrage. “Not so long ago you’d’ve been glad to earn the eye from me.” His humour faded as his eyes lit on something behind her. “That time already,” he said, moving back from his cart and falling to one knee.

Reva turned to see a procession entering the square from the north, people kneeling as they passed. In the lead a young man in a priest’s robe walked with a measured gate, holding aloft a silken banner emblazoned with the flame of the World Father. Behind him walked five men side by side, robed in the dark green worn only by bishops, all holding a book in each hand. At the rear walked an old man in a plain white robe, his gaze fixed firmly ahead, giving off an aura of calm dignity, only slightly spoiled by the bulge of belly beneath his robe.

“Kneel girl!” the fruit vendor hissed. “Do you want a flogging?”

The Reader,
Reva realised as she knelt, watching the procession mount the steps a few yards away. The priest had always been very clear on the first target for her father’s sword.
Corrupt leader of the corrupted church. Near as vile a traitor to the Father as the drunkard in the manor.

She watched the white-robed man as he lifted his skirts to ascend the steps. His face was unremarkable save for a somewhat hooked nose, lines of age, and no particular shine to his eyes bespeaking either evil or goodness. The church held that the Reader heard the Father’s voice every time he read from the Ten Books. An absurd notion, since the Father had clearly ordained there should now be eleven books. This old man, with his belly and his sycophants, was the worst kind of heretic, deafening himself to the Father’s voice for fear he may lose power over the church.

One thing at a time,
she thought as the procession disappeared into the cathedral, turning back to the manor.
No way in . . . except on petitioning day.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next two days were spent familiarising herself with the city streets and gleaning as much information as she could about the interior of the Fief Lord’s manor.

“Sits in his chair on a platform in the main hall,” the innkeeper said. “People come, plead their cases, it all gets written down then a week later he gives his judgement, or rather what judgement the whore tells him to give.”

“Doesn’t it make people angry?” she asked, careful to keep her tone merely curious. “The fief being governed by some Asraelin strumpet.”

He cackled; she noticed he did that a lot. “Would do if she wasn’t so good at it. Streets are clean, trade is good, outlaws under control, more so here than in the other fiefs so I hear. Wasn’t like this in his father’s day, I can tell you.”

From what she could gather petitioners would line up at the front gate in the morning, the proceedings commencing at the tenth hour, though the Fief Lord’s punctuality was often lacking. Petitions were heard until the sixth hour past noon, the order they were heard in determined by lot. It was tradition for the Fief Lord to provide a meal for the petitioners at midday. “It’s no banquet,” the fruit vendor told her. “But it’s a decent spread, takes all the servants in the manor to dish it out.”

Servants . . . Lots of them moving about, pages and maids.

She sat with Arken on the cathedral steps that evening, waiting for a cart to trundle up to the gate.

“The thing you’re after is in there?” he asked, sounding dubious.

“I believe so.”

“And you’re going to steal it?”

“You can’t steal what’s yours by right . . . But yes. Is that a problem?”

“Stealing from a Fief Lord.” He grimaced and shook his head. “They’ll kill us if we’re caught.”

“No, they’ll kill me. You’re not coming.” She held up a hand as he started to protest. “I need you to secure our escape. You’ll wait with the horses at the city gate.”

“And if you don’t come?”

“Then ride away, fast.”

“I can’t . . .”

“This isn’t a story and it isn’t a song, and you’re not some noble warrior who can rescue me. You’re right, if I’m caught, I’m dead, and your waiting around will make no difference. You will take the horses, and the money, and go.”

Her gaze was drawn back to the manor as a cart arrived, laden with wine and sundry foodstuffs. The guards opened the gate and a troop of servants emerged to unload the cart, mostly men, but also a few women. She watched them closely, drinking in the details of their garb.
A pale blue scarf tying back their hair, skirts black, blouses white.

“Where would I go?” Arken was asking, sounding very young.

She watched the servants disappear back into the manor. “North,” she said. “The Reaches. If you present yourself to the Tower Lord and mention my name, I’m sure he’ll find a place for you.”

His voice was hushed when he spoke again, reverent almost. “You know Lord Al Sorna?”

She got to her feet, brushing dust from her trews. “Certainly, I was his sister.”

◆ ◆ ◆

She bought a plain white blouse, a blue scarf and two skirts, one black, one green. She spent the evening before petitioning day sewing them together, green outside, black inside. She had seen how punctilious the guards were in searching visitors to the manor so discounted the notion of concealing a weapon beneath the skirts. If need be, she could always find the kitchens where there would be knives aplenty. Come the morning she presented herself at the manor gate, clutching a scroll bearing a fictitious claim against an imaginary stepmother. She was a little flustered, the farewell with Arken had been awkward, the boy leaning close to press a kiss to her cheek then retreating with a hurt look as she pulled back in alarm.

“Remember, don’t wait,” she said. “If I’m not there an hour after the gate opens in the morning . . .”

“I know,” he said, scowling a little.

She hoped he would be content with a squeeze to his hand and took herself off to the manor. She got there early but a line of over a dozen people had already formed, the number soon growing to well over two hundred by the time the gate opened. A House Guard emerged to walk down the line, a sack held open in his hands, each petitioner reaching in to extract a wooden peg as he did so. Reva duly plucked one when her turn came, doing her best to look anxious.

“Six!” exclaimed the old woman behind her, reading the symbol carved into the peg Reva had drawn. The woman’s own read fifty-nine. “I’ll be here all bloody day, with my old legs about to buckle any second as well.”

Reva thought the woman had a fairly sturdy look to her, but made a sympathetic face. “Don’t worry, grandmother. We’ll swap, here.” She held out the peg.

The woman squinted in suspicion. “How much?”

“The Father loves a generous deed,” Reva told her, smiling broadly.

“Oh.” The woman glanced at the cathedral then held out her own peg. “Righto.”

From behind came shouts of discord as the last peg was chosen. “Not my problem,” the guard with the sack called over his shoulder as he made his way back down the line. “Come back next month.”

They were soon ushered through the gate, each searched for weapons before being allowed to proceed into the grounds beyond, a bizarre mix of ornate topiary and fruit trees, then into the manor itself. The petitioners were required to gather in the main hall, situated at the end of a short hallway featuring few doors, all having the varnished look of many years’ disuse. In the hall a cordon of guards stood before a raised platform where an empty chair waited. When all one hundred petitioners had been led in, a guard held up a hand to silence the murmur.

“Bow for Fief Lord Sentes Mustor, most loyal servant of the Unified Realm and ruler by the King’s Word of the Fief of Cumbrael.”

Reva had positioned herself at the rear of the hall so only had a partial view of the man who emerged from a side door. He was of average height, somewhere past his fiftieth year, well dressed but with a long tangle of unkempt hair, walking with a slight stoop. When he sat down she had a clear view of his face, finding it far from edifying: sunken cheekbones, sallow unshaven skin and eyes that were unnaturally red, even for a drunkard. She had expected to find some vestige of her own features there, some echo of shared blood, but there was nothing, making her wonder if she favoured her mother more than her father.