“She hasn’t wed because a husband would be a shackle for her,” Vaelin Al Sorna told me. “She does good deeds to curry favour with the common folk. Win their hearts and she wins power. If she has a heart then it’s power that stirs it, not passion.”
Silently I resolved to make my own researches into the life of Princess Lyrna. The more this Northman told me the greater my compulsion to travel to his homeland. Although I suspected he had little appreciation for the artistry and learning evident in the culture he described, I lusted for it. I wanted to read the books in the Great Library and view Master Benril Lenial’s frescos of the Red Hand. I wanted to see the ancient stones of the Circle where he had spilled the blood of three men. We had thought the people of the Unified Realm little more than illiterate savages, and in truth, many of their warriors had been just that. But now I could see there was more to their story than simple barbarism and war lust. In a few short hours I had learned more of his realm than in all the years of study for my history of the war. He had kindled something in me, the desire to write another history, greater and richer than all my previous work. A history of his realm.
“Did the King keep his promise?” I asked. “Did he impose his justice and save the woman in the Blackhold?”
“The men I named were executed the next day. The woman and her son were packed off to the Northern Reaches within the week.” He paused, he face heavy with sorrow. “I went to see her before she left, Erlin arranged the meeting. I begged her for forgiveness. She spat at me and called me a murderer.”
I took up my quill and wrote down his words, taking the liberty of exchanging “spat at me” with “cursed me with all the power of her Denier gods.” I like to add a little colour where I can.
“And your part of the bargain?” I continued. “Did you do what the King had commanded? Did you kill Linden Al Hestian?”
He looked down at his hands resting on his knees, flexing the fingers, the veins and sinews standing out clearly amidst the scars. Killer’s hands, I thought knowing they could choke the life from me in a few seconds.
“Yes,” he said. “I killed him.”
Chapter 1
A Cumbraelin longbow was over five feet long when unstrung and fashioned from the heart-wood of a yew tree. It could propel an arrow over two hundred paces, almost three hundred in skilled hands, and was quite capable of piercing plate armour at close range. The one Vaelin held was slightly thicker than most, the smoothness of the stave evidence of the extensive use it had seen. Its owner had a keen eye, sending his steel tipped arrow clean through the armoured chest of one Martil Al Jelnek, an affable young noble with a fondness for poetry and a somewhat tiresome inclination to talk constantly about his betrothed who he claimed to be the fairest and kindest maid in all of Asrael, if not the world. Sadly, he would never see her again. His eyes were open but had lost all vestige of life. His mouth was stained with blood and vomit, the signs of a painful death; Cumbraelin archers tended to coat their arrowheads in a mixture of joffril root and adder venom. The bow’s owner lay a few yards away with Vaelin’s shaft in his arm, his neck broken by the fall from the birch in which he had hidden.
“Nothing,” Barkus said, trudging through the snow, flanked by Caenis and Dentos. “Looks like he was the only one.” He kicked the dead archer’s head, making it swivel on a twisted spine, before kneeling to divest the corpse of any valuables.
“Where’d all the soldiers go?” Dentos asked.
“Scattered,” Vaelin said. “Probably find most of them in the camp when we get back.”
“Bloody cowards.” Dentos peered down at Martil Al Jelnek. “Didn’t they like him? Thought he was a nice enough fellow, meself. For a high born.”
“These supposed soldiers are the sweepings of the Varinshold dungeons, brother,” Caenis told him. “They have no loyalty to any man save themselves.”
“Did you find his horse?” Vaelin asked. He didn’t relish the prospect of carrying the dead noble back to the camp.
“Nortah’s bringing it,” Barkus said, straightening from the archer, jingling the few coppers he had found. He tossed the Cumbraelin’s quiver to Vaelin. The arrows it held were stained ash black and fletched with raven’s feathers. Their enemies liked to sign their work. “You keeping that?” He nodded at the bow. “I could get ten silvers for it when we get back to the city.”
Vaelin kept hold of the weapon. “Thought I’d see if I could master it.”
“Good luck. These buggers train for a lifetime from what I hear. Their Fief Lord makes them practice every day.” He looked down at the meagre collection of coppers in his hand. “Doesn’t seem keen on paying them much though.”
“This lot fight for their god not their Lord,” Caenis said. “Money holds little interest for them.”
They stripped the armour from Al Jelnek and heaved him onto the back of his horse, Nortah slapping Barkus’s hand away when it strayed to the dead man’s purse.