Song of the Fairy Queen (9 page)

How did I miss it?

It hadn’t been a coincidence, either, that the attack had come on a night when he and most of his people were supposed to have been away to the north. If they hadn’t taken care of their business there so quickly they would have been there still, only to ride back to find this.

Haerold had known, had planned for everything but that last.

The wizard had always underestimated Morgan.

Smoke still stung the nose, fire still smoldered in places. Buildings were crumpled in on themselves, leaving odd skeletal remains.

He passed a hole in the ground where once a building had stood. The hole was nearly filled with ashes, coals glowed dimly in the bottom of it.

Home? Shop?
Whichever or whatever it had been it was gone.

Morgan’s jaw clenched.

But they’d drawn close to the mostly dry moat and slid down the side of it as silently as they’d arrived.

The stench hit and Morgan fought the need to retch.

Here was where they’d dumped the bodies of the dead, rather than give them a decent burial… It was a horror, an abattoir…

Morgan fought through it as quietly as he could – too aware of the bodies beneath his feet, good people who’d done nothing to deserve this fate – until he reached the other side and the narrow stretch of earth at the base of the castle. He’d always warned the King’s guards about this possibility, had reminded them to keep stone at their backs and away from the shadows.

Ducking beneath the drawbridge, Jacob made his way to the other side.

With his back pressed against the castle wall, Morgan slipped silently along it.

It was late, the guards were tired, not alert, while he and Jacob were tense and quick.

The guards died swiftly and joined the dead below, their bodies sliding down the bank.

Morgan stepped into the tunnel beneath the gate tower and looked up.

Following his gaze, Jacob nodded in understanding.

Above them, a faint light glimmered through the murder hole. Voices, muffled, came from above, they bantered back and forth.

From the rhythm of it, Morgan guessed a card game was in progress.

A clink of coins confirmed his guess.

Keeping tight to the sides, he and Jacob slid past, to peer around the corners at the other end.

The courtyard was empty, save for the two guards at the main doors.

Torchlight flickered unsteadily from the torches in the brackets by the doors above their heads.

On the ramparts above, the guards paced tiredly. They were looking out, not in, talking idly among themselves.

No one really expected any organized resistance, not yet. That would change and quickly, if Morgan had any say in it.

If he survived this.

The guards at the doors looked up as someone on the walls called to them. Morgan tipped his head and Jacob came over to Morgan’s side of the entry as Morgan slid around the corner. All it would take to undo things would be for a scullery maid to empty her slop bucket, or some soldier come to take a leak against the wall and they would be done for.

Neither happened and they made their way around the base of the wall until they reached the kitchens at the back of the castle proper.

The cook was asleep, his head propped up by the ovens, the bread set out to rise.

Hearts in their throats, Morgan and Jacob slipped past him, moving nearly silently.

Danger rarely came from kitchens and so they were seldom guarded.

The Great Hall was clearly occupied, as a pair of guards stood at attention at both sets of doors, the ones to the courtyard and the ones to the hall.

Grimly, the guards stared at each other across the hall.

Nerves screwed tight, Morgan gestured. This would be risky.

He darted across the hall into the Steward’s office, closing the door softly behind them once Jacob was safely inside.

On the far wall he found the catch for the secret entrance to the halls behind the walls.

As Marshal, he’d been required to know all the ins and outs of the castle, to better protect the King.

That thought made his gut twist again.

He’d failed in that, just not completely. In the back of his mind he still searched for a way to have known, but he couldn’t find it… His spy hadn’t seen it. There’d been no hints, no rumors.

Morgan put it away. It couldn’t matter now, he had to let it go and concentrate on the matter at hand.

They slipped inside the dark tunnel, made their way to the upper floors past other entrances and exits until they reached the musician’s gallery that a predecessor to Gwen had installed but Gwen herself had never used. His heart wrenched at her loss, for he missed her, too.

That gallery overlooked the Great Hall though. It was the most likely place for Haerold to be found, if not in the King’s quarters.

Few even noticed the balcony was there any longer as a banner covered the opening and Haerold had never lived in this place. It had been and was Oryan’s seat, his inheritance from his father.

Light flickered there.

What was it that had Haerold and his allies up so late in the Great Hall?
Morgan wondered.

Making his careful way around, Walter studied the men camped below.
Northmen
?

He nodded to himself.

Northmen they were.

They were lighter in hair than even Morgan, some of them
, he thought, grinning a little at the idea, knowing how little Morgan would have liked the comparison.

He shook his head even so, cursing lightly in his mind.

Did Haerold truly not care who he made alliances with to take the throne? Did he not know what men such as these had done in the north, the slaughter and rapine?

In the darkness behind him, something quested, but he was unaware.

Frowning a little, it panted, tasting the air…

Warmth, prey warmth…

It leaped, taking the interloper in the throat, its jaws closed, crushed, as hot blood burst into its throat, warm and rich.

Walter had only time to register the impact before he died.

Once the Great Hall at Caernarvon had been beautiful – an open, lovely place with its long fire pits and the spits that ran down the length of them. Oryan and Gwenifer’s thrones still stood at the far end, white and gold, with the King’s table across the width. Beneath the clerestory windows high above were the flags and colors of Oryan’s vassal states, there where the silk could capture the last light of day, brightening the room. Torchlit by night, it hadn’t seemed such a cavernous space then as it did now, but warm and close.

A thousand memories crowded Morgan’s mind. Happy memories of feasting here in the good company of his King, Queen and their people. The trestle tables lining each side nearly groaned with food. Mugs of ale and wine were filled by pages, young girls and lads, everyone laughing, jests flying. Laughter had filled the room, the rafters had rung with it.

He remembered tall, gangly Gwenifer being called out to dance as she protested that she couldn’t – and she was right – yet still being drawn out. She’d laughed helplessly as Oryan simply shook his head indulgently and smiled as she looked back at him in appeal, seeking rescue.

Grief caught Morgan swiftly and unexpectedly. It had never occurred to him that he hadn’t grieved for the loss of the Queen much, either. Yet he’d loved her like a sister. How could he not have, to the woman who’d given so much to his friend Oryan?

She may not have been a dancer, but she’d been hell’s own vengeance with a sword in her hand, giving no quarter and expecting none in return. He’d enjoyed sparring with her.

He bit the pain back, it did her sacrifice no good.

There would be another, better, time to grieve for Gwenifer.

Someday.

In the hall below Haerold paced… A tall, dark, bearded figure who bore some slight resemblance to Oryan in the length of his face and his coloring.

“What do we hear of my brother?” Haerold demanded, harshly.

Sitting on the throne in Gwenifer’s place was a woman, a wizard – and not a white one. Her shapely legs were draped wantonly over the arm of the chair, her thick, straight, dark red hair spilled nearly to the floor behind her. She was dressed in a velvet and satin gown of dark gold, close fitting and elaborately embroidered as was the fashion abroad. She wore a heavy gold chain encrusted with jewels the color of droplets of blood. It dropped between her abundant breasts to a pendant in the shape of a globe.

Her features were unnaturally lovely, still and cold. The fingers of one hand played idly with the globe while the fingers of the other danced casually, seemingly restlessly, in the air.

Standing to one side, watching, was a tallish, broad-chested man dressed all in black. He was as mercenary by his look and his rig – a thing of broad belts of metal-studded black leather crossing his shoulders and girdling his hips. A broadsword was strapped to his back, a saber hung in the scabbard at his side.

A Northman straddled a chair backwards, his broad arms resting across the back. An axe graced his back.

Sitting at another place at the table was a slender dark blonde man with a sharpish, clever face, who played idly with a knife, spinning it, point down, in the once glossy tabletop. Now that top was scarred, burned and littered with holes.

Delaville
.

Now they knew from where the information on his own movements, his coming and goings had come. A member of Oryan’s Privy Council, Delaville would have known everything.

How had they turned him?

To judge by his clothes and jewelry, Delaville had betrayed a man who considered him a friend for gold.

“Nothing,” a voice growled, quite literally, from the darkness. “My people tracked them to the Forest and no farther. We’ve lost the scent.”

From those shadows stalked another figure, the speaker, and everything in Morgan cried out in horror, in denial…

Some claimed Haerold himself bore some slight resemblance to a wolf. His features were long like Oryan’s, but more lupine, his eyes hazel where Oryan’s were a deep brown, Haerold’s cheeks more hollow…

But this…thing…

“What the hell is that?” Jacob hissed.

Its face, too, was long, its broad nose more like a muzzle and tipped dark. The hollows beneath its cheekbones were deep and shadowed, its heavy beard, moustache, hair and eyebrows thick, black, silver-streaked and
wrong
. The creature’s chest was deep, strong, rounded and powerfully muscled. Its arms were sinewy, the waist and hips unnaturally lean. It had strong hands, and claws where fingernails should have been. The thing’s legs canted at an unnatural angle, so he stalked forward as much as stepped into the light. His eyes were as golden and feral as a wolf’s, but no honest wolf would have called this thing cousin.

Morgan shuddered instinctively in revulsion.

The creature looked to the others and finally to Haerold.