Sovereign (38 page)

Farben wiped his mouth and looked away from the dangling head. 'He was one of my secretaries.'

'A secretary with secretaries,' Lynan mused. 'Next you will be telling me you are a secretary with secrets.'

'My lord, how… how did this happen? Where did you find poor Coudroun?'

'Where?' Lynan asked, his voice hardening like steel. It cut through the throne room. 'Can you not tell me?'

'The last I saw of him, your Majesty, he was on his way to the region of Esquidion to order supplies of food and lumber and stone for the city. He was a good and faithful secretary. He was a good man with much promise…'

'On his way to Esquidion on whose orders?'

'Why, mine,' Farben said quickly. 'He would not have left without my explicit instruction. He would never do anything without consulting me.' His voice was rising with distress. 'My lord, I know his sister who lives in Daavis. She will be alone in the world now. Please tell me how you come to find him slain so brutally?'

'I didn't
find
him slain so brutally, Farben.'

Farben looked up sharply, his face turning as white as Lynan's. 'Your Majesty cannot mean…' His voice trailed off as he realised that was exactly what his Majesty had meant.

Ager stepped forward. 'Lynan—' Lynan whipped around to stare at Ager. The crookback felt his heart skip a beat. He swallowed and said, slowly and deliberately, 'Your Majesty,' and bowed.

'Yes?'

'It seems clear that Farben had no idea of this Coudroun's part in Charion's rebellion.'

'Rebellion!' Farben cried, the word torn out of him.

Lynan wagged his head from side to side as if considering what Ager had said. 'Well, that's one way to look at it,' he conceded. Then his head straightened with a snap and he was again glaring at Farben. 'But I cannot help wondering if one secretary can betray a master, then another might as easily.'

'Your Majesty!' Farben squealed. 'I have done nothing against you! I have taken your instructions to heart and worked only for the good of the city and its people in the expectation—' He stopped himself short.

'In the expectation of Charion's eventual return,' Lynan finished for him.

'These were your conditions, my lord, set down by you,' Farben pleaded. 'You told me that when you won the throne of Grenda Lear you would allow Charion to rule again in Hume.'

'I also told you that I would not tolerate anyone working directly against my interests.'

'I have not done so, I swear!'

'We have no reason to suspect Farben has played you foul, your Majesty,' Korigan said, stepping forward next to Ager. 'The walls are repaired, the streets cleared of all rubble, businesses are back to normal—'

'And traitors butcher my troops!' Lynan roared, swinging around to face her. Coudroun's head bumped into Farben's arm and the secretary involuntarily jumped out of the way. Lynan saw the motion and reacted immediately. His free hand shot out and grabbed Farben around the throat, lifting him off his feet and squeezing the air out of him.

'Your Majesty!' Ager and Korigan cried together. Other servants started to cry out and back out of the throne room.

'No one leaves!' Lynan ordered, and Red Hands moved to bar the door. 'I trusted this man, my enemy! I gave him a chance to prove himself, to work for the common good of the people of Hume, but instead what I find is his own secretary raises a sword against my soldiers!'

As he shouted Lynan turned slowly to face each group in the throne room, Farben swinging in the air, wheezing, kicking, trying to suck in a breath.

'Lynan!' Jenrosa yelled and stepped right before him, 'You are killing him!'

Lynan looked at her as if she was stupid. 'Well, of course I'm killing him!' he hissed at her. His forearm flexed, his fingers came together, and there was a sickening crack. Farben's body went instantly limp, and the smell of hot piss filled the room.

'Oh God,' Jenrosa said hoarsely.

Lynan moved around Jenrosa and started circling the throne room, his arms by his side, Farben's heels dragging on the floor, Coudroun's gory head swinging by its red hair. All but Ager, Gudon, Korigan and Jenrosa huddled against the walls, terrified. His companions gathered together in the centre of the room, turning to keep him in view, not knowing what to do, not even knowing who Lynan was any more.

'Some changes,' Lynan was saying, more to himself than anyone else. 'That's what we need here. No more talk of Charion. No more talk of giving enemies a second chance. Daavis is an occupied enemy city. No more chances. I will hunt down all my enemies. I will have them. No more chances.'

Ager wanted to close his eyes, to pretend none of this was happening, that the thing stalking around them was still, somehow, Prince Lynan Rosetheme, son of Elynd Chisal, his friend and liege lord. But he could not force his eyes shut and he could not keep out the rambling sentences, half-mad, half-incoherent, that spilled from Lynan's mouth. Korigan and Gudon were resolutely staring at the floor, grey-faced. Jenrosa, like Ager, stared at Lynan, her own eyes wide with something more than fear. Certainty, he thought. She was looking at Lynan with certainty.

'I will fill the streets with the heads of my enemies,' Lynan was saying.

It was enough, Ager thought. It was all enough. He left his companions and barred Lynan's way.

'Ager. What are you still doing here?'

Ager put a hand on each of Lynan's. 'Let them go,' he said gently.

Lynan looked down at what he was holding as if he had not been aware he had them. Farben's body slumped to the ground. Coudroun's head rolled until it bumped into one of the servant's legs.

'Korigan?' Ager said, keeping his eyes on Lynan. 'Would you help me get his majesty to his chambers, please?'

Korigan moved quickly. She and the crookback led Lynan out of the throne room. As they left, Ager looked over his shoulder to Jenrosa. He caught her eye, and saw that beside the certainty there was also resolution there, and once more the faint spark of hope flared in his heart.

CHAPTER 22

Tomar sat on his throne trying to stay awake as two landowners argued a case before him. His secretaries had tried unsuccessfully to clarify the separate claims before the claimants entered, and now he was paying the price for it. He already knew what his decision would be, but tradition—not justice—demanded that both claimants could put forward their case fully. He looked around, noticed that others in the court were also fighting off drooping eyelids and cavernous yawns. The law was a ponderous thing, he thought, made fat by centuries of bickering clerks and poor decisions. One day he would get around to codifying properly the statutes of Chandra, organising them into some kind of hierarchy so that others besides himself could determine the outcomes of cases so important that grieves passed them onto the capital. And that's the other thing he would do, update the system of grieves. He had met a few during his reign, and a benighted lot they were too.

No, he corrected himself, not all of them. There had been the brave little fellow in the Arran Valley who put up to Jes Prado. Not a lot of common sense, maybe, but certainly more than his fair share of pluck. There was, after all, some good among the dross, even if you had to search hard for it. Reforming the system might increase the good and reduce the dross, and that would actually help reduce the problem of too many cases being passed on to the court.

He fidgeted uncomfortably on the throne; even with a cushion under his backside it was an exercise in slow torture to sit through an open session in court, bedecked in his finery, holding the staff of judgement, desperately trying to look interested.

There was a commotion outside the throne room. Tomar held his hand up to stop the landowner who was droning on about ancient rights of way. The court sergeant was standing at the entrance, indicating that there was someone just out of sight waiting to see him. Then he noticed that the sergeant's lance of office was dressed over his right shoulder. The someone waiting was royalty.

Oh God, not Areava, surely!

'My good sirs,' he said to the claimants. 'My apologies, but this case must be delayed to another time.' He turned to one of his secretaries. 'Arrange a special hearing for these two men. Their important matter must not be put off a moment longer than necessary.'

The secretary nodded and gathered together the two landlords, who were indignant but were given no time to object, and moved them aside. Tomar immediately signalled to the sergeant, who marched forward. Two figures—a man and a woman—fell in behind him. He recognised both, and the sight of the woman made him inside. He would rather it was Areava.

'Charion,' he said.

Although everyone in the room was already watching approach of the unexpected guests, most had not seen the sergeant's lance and did not recognise them. When Tomar said the name, a murmur passed through the court like a breeze over a wheat field.

Their condition was pitiful. Their clothes were in tatters, their skin cut and bruised, their hair matted, their faces drawn with exhaustion. He was never sure what made him do it, but filled with a sudden and unexpected pity Tomar descended from the throne to greet them.

'King Tomar, forgive this intrusion,' Charion said. 'But we have ridden far and had nowhere else to go.'

'Then you are welcome in my house,' he said formally, knowing that with their arrival and with his words, events had been set in motion over which he would soon have no control.

Later that day Tomar called for his champion. When Barys arrived he found the king sitting at a desk with three documents in front of him, two he recognised immediately as official letters from Kendra. The third was written neatly on good quality paper, and he could see that Tomar had folded and unfolded it many times.

'How long have you served me?' Tomar asked him, motioning for him to take the seat opposite his.

Barys had to think that one through. 'Twenty years. Maybe more.'

'Thirty-one,' Tomar said.

'Really? I had no idea it had been that long. Are you going to retire me?'

'You will outlast me, old friend.'

'We are the same age.'

'You look older.'

Barys snorted. 'Are you going to talk to me about these?' he asked, moving the documents around the table with a hand. He did not pretend not to be curious, but nor did he insult his king by trying to read them upside down.

Tomar picked up one of the Kendra letters. 'This one you already know the contents of. It is from Areava informing us of her decision to plant the standard of her Great Army in southern Chandra.'

'You know my thoughts on that.'

'And this,' Tomar continued, holding up the second letter from Kendra, 'is from her chancellor.' He gave it to Barys.

'It is her signature,' Barys said.

'But his writing,' Tomar replied. 'I know it as well as I know my own. Read.'

Barys did so. When he finished he said, 'This can hardly surprise you. They must be wondering why you have not formally agreed to their request.'

'I think some in Kendra may have wondered. Areava was happy to let it go and let the army simply arrive, that way demonstrating to the people of Chandra that it was her decision to impose on this province and not mine. She is as wily as her mother, and in her own way as considerate of our sensibilities.'

'Nevertheless, she did sign this second letter,' Barys pointed out, 'her consideration for our sensibilities notwithstanding.'

'She was outmanoeuvred,' Tomar said. 'Probably in council.'

'By Orkid Gravespear?'

'Possibly, or maybe by someone from one of the Twenty Houses.'

'You cannot actually know this.'

Tomar shrugged. 'I have no reason to find excuses for Areava. I do not like the woman. But I do think she is closer in style and intent to Usharna than any of her siblings, and this province lived quite well under Usharna's protective embrace.'

'You have a soft spot for the old queen because she married Elynd.'

With the mention of that name Tomar visibly stiffened, something Barys could not help noticing. Then it all clicked into place for him. He pointed to the third document. 'That's from the General's son, isn't it?'

Tomar closed his eyes and nodded.

'I hope you have been keeping that on your person,' Barys said. 'If Areava or the chancellor—or, for God's sake, Charion—were to find out you had it, they would cut off your head.'

'You would protect me,' Tomar said, trying to keep his voice light.

'They would happily cut off mine first to get to you.'

Tomar did not argue the point.

'Well, my lord, are you going to tell me what it says?'

Tomar picked up the letter, but hesitated in handing it over. 'How well do you remember Elynd?' he asked suddenly.

'Very well,' Barys said seriously. 'I fought by his side in three great battles—'

'Yes, I know all that,' Tomar said impatiently. 'Did you like him?'

'Yes.'

'And I,' the king admitted. 'I know he liked both of us. He thought we were…' Tomar struggled to find the word.

'As straight as a wind across the Oceans of Grass,' Barys said.

Tomar smiled. 'Yes, that's it. How clever of you to remember.'

'The old general had a way with words.'

'Not all of them attractive.'

'What's the point of all this remembering?'

'He was as straight with us as we were with him. It was part of his nature, I think.'

'He was half-Chett, after all,' Barys said. 'It is said they value honesty above almost all other virtues.'

Tomar leaned forward urgently and grasped one of Barys's wrists, bringing his face within a finger's span of his champion's. 'I believe the same of his son.'

Barys, refusing to show he was surprised by the king's sudden action, said as mundanely as possible: 'So?'

Tomar let go of Barys and sat back. 'For the thirty-one years you have served me as my champion, I have in turn served the throne of Grenda Lear as its governor of Chandra.'

Barys took umbrage at that and was not afraid to show it. 'Long before there was a palace in Kendra your family ruled here.'