Part 18 (1/2)
But the b.a.s.t.a.r.d with the yellow eye had lived.
Maledysaunte, Riordan thought. The Hag of Wolf Wood, from whom no knight escapes. For nearly half a century, the sorceress had sent their corpses home to her half-brother on biers woven of greenwood and roses, even in the dead of winter. Every so often another of her treacherous gifts had arrived as well, disguised as tribute from a conquered king-a poisoned cloak, a pretty girl slave with a dagger concealed in her hair. Legend had the witch bent and ragged, one eye green as poison and the other naught but a rotting sore with snakes writhing behind it. There was supposed to be a beautiful princess as well, imprisoned in the witch's dank tower.
Every sticky mark of a good story. And here he was, caught in it.
Riordan's teeth grated together. He drew his gaudy cloak tighter over his shoulders, mindful of the brilliant sc.r.a.p-work twisting on the breeze. He wouldn't place a bet on the snakes.
That sounded the sort of touch Henri of Canton would add to a ballad. Besides, if her brother so belied his age, why should she look any older?
Riordan smiled privately. Because she's wicked, of course.
And then the wind brought him putrescence again. The polite soldier gagged, averting his streaming eyes and using the hem of his royal-blue tunic to m.u.f.fle his face. In sympathy, Riordan clapped his shoulder.
The soldier coughed again before he straightened, and rewarded the Harper with a grateful glance. He's just a boy, Riordan thought, and was ashamed of as soon as the soldier said, ”Don't worry, Harper. The King's men will take care of you, and this caer has never fallen to a siege.”
Words were already taking shape in the bard's mind, and he was only half-listening. All under the Lion Banner / On a clear warm day in June.... ”What's your name, lad?”
He drew himself up proudly and touched a bronze badge pinned over the tartan on his shoulder. ”Captain Dunstan, Harper.” A stinking wind ruffled his ash-blond curls.
Dunstan rode to the battle / and the drummers called the tune. ”Have you ever fought an army like this one, then?”
The young soldier's face blanched behind his bravado, but he did not look down. The bard noticed a signet ring on the lad's finger when he lifted it to scratch his beardless chin. One of the King's many b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, then. That's why he had the command so young. Aidan had married only the once, and gotten no legitimate heirs before burning his young wife for treason.
Riordan suspected the experience had soured him.
Dunstan spoke. ”She's never come out of Wolf Wood before. Nor ever sent an army.”
”Sort of makes you wonder what's changed, doesn't it?” Riordan followed after the High-King, already humming the first verse of a ballad and thinking about the words he would put to it, after the battle was won.
Captain, d'ye hear the clash of blades And the battle cries so fierce?
We'll cry the more this night, me boys, If her blade our hearts does pierce.
Maledysaunte would have lowered her green mantle from her head and paused inside the gates of the caer, pinioned on girlhood memories, but the press of refugees bore her forward. Dust rose in a plume around them, stirred by many feet; the once-familiar high walls, hung with blue and gold, oppressed her.
She had left Necromancer concealed in the sprawl of the town, and now she limped as if footsore and weary. So many people. She wanted to gag on the stench of them, like the stench of the dead. The press of bodies a.s.saulted her from all sides. The dull-colored flagstones were rough under her feet.
She refused to look too hard at the children, at a young couple hand in hand, the woman leaning on her husband's arm. At an old man who crouched in the shade out of the flow of traffic, a book-a book!-balanced on his knee. At the stout brown-haired woman who smiled and stepped out of Maledysaunte's path with a friendly nod to the weary-looking girl.
Too late. The deal was already struck: blackest necromancy. There was an irony there, that Maledysaunte's inability to get to Aidan had driven her to the very crimes he accused her of.
Debts must be paid.
Permitting the river of townsfolk to sweep her past the guards, Maledysaunte turned into the bailey. The burden of wizardry pressed over her like sodden blankets, and had the encroaching revenant army not already triggered every magical ward on the caer, alarms would have shrilled her presence. She smiled-more a grimace of pain-and closed her eyes to feel her way. And almost ran down the rag-cloaked figure of a bard.
”Pardon!” The sorceress tried to squeak like a terrified townswoman, but her voice was rusty with disuse. She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to a man. She never bothered to introduce herself to the knights who came to kill her anymore, instead permitting the forest to murder them while she sat at her loom or dug in her garden. They hadn't offered much entertainment at best: invariably stalwart and of limited imagination.
”No pardon required. If only pretty la.s.ses would walk into me more often. I'm Riordan.” He picked up her hand, which hung at her side, and swept a bow over it. His right foot dragged.
I could have healed that when he was born. A bitter thought, made bitterer by history. But thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Much less a b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter of the lord who's a half-hour older than the son and heir, and has the misfortune to know how to talk to animals.
Wizards are all right, though. Although they never seem to heal anybody. She kept her eyes downcast, working her mouth around the taste of dust. If he noticed she had one eye green and one amber, he'd find her memorable, and she did not wish to be remembered. ”I... Y... Ygraine, master bard.” As she stammered over the name, she wondered why she had chosen it.
”A lovely name, if out of favor these days.”
”My parents were from the provinces,” she lied, extemporizing wildly. ”They did not know the name of the King's first wife, nor had they heard the story....”
”A piercing irony that you should find yourself here, girl-besieged by the very sorceress that infamous queen aided in her escape. Let us hope that your name is not a portent, shall we?”
”Let us hope,” she said, and curtsied lower when it seemed as if the bard would reach out and lift her chin to see her face the better. ”I must... my husband is waiting, Harper. Thank you your kindness.”
Infamous. A kinder word than many would have chosen. Still, her teeth hurt from grinding them. She caught herself scouring her hands against her gown and twisted them in the black cloth of her skirts instead.
She turned and scurried toward the keep itself, chafing under the weight of innocent humanity all around her and the itch of the iron dagger hungry between her shoulders.
Captain, d'ye smell the smoke of war And the stench of burning men?
Aye, and I hear the screaming, lads, In the keep which we defend.
Riordan watched the girl with the mismatched eyes hurry across drab red and grey flagstones, the spill of hair from under her mantle catching blue highlights in the dusty sun. Husband. Something about the word nagged in his mind. Ygraine. Husband.
She was gone from sight before he jerked upright and turned to follow her, limping toward the tower keep as fast as he could drag his crippled foot. Husband. And wearing her hair down on her shoulders like a maiden? Not likely!
”Dunstan! Captain!” The bard pitched his voice to carry, wis.h.i.+ng he had more at his belt than an eating knife only so long as the span of his palm. He caught sight of the captain leaning against a paneled divider and lurched toward him.
The blue-eyed lad turned his head sluggishly when Riordan clutched his arm. ”Master bard.” He blinked twice, as if struggling to focus.
”Did a girl go by here?”
The young Captain shook his head, but it wasn't precisely denial. ”Everything swims in my vision.”
”Bewitched.” Or poisoned. But he couldn't see a wound. Riordan gulped and dragged at Dunstan's arm. ”Hurry. The Hag is in the castle!”
”The King!”
”In his study. Go!”
Dunstan all but carried the bard up the spiraling stairs, until Riordan knocked his hand away. ”Go. Hurry. I'll follow.”
Dunstan nodded and drew his sword, bolting up the uneven stair. Riordan followed more slowly, hauling himself along by means of handholds on the sloppily dressed stone wall. Faster. Faster. He was halfway there when he heard the hiss of blades drawn, only a few steps from the top and able to see over the landing when steel rang on steel and he glimpsed Dunstan, cursing, engaged with another soldier in the livery of the King-a soldier who fought dead-eyed and with inhuman quickness.
Dunstan fought well, Riordan granted. But the lad was a lad, and half-weeping in frustration at dueling his comrade. He was pulling his blows, fighting defensively. The bard lurched higher, catching the s.h.i.+n of his bad leg on the step.
Beyond the combatants, Riordan could see the slight girl in the green mantle, a wicked little dagger clutched in her hand. The body of Aidan's attendant wizard lay at Maledysaunte's feet, blood a banner across the white bodice of her gown. The King faced her, a half-step up on the little platform his gilded desk stood on, his broadsword drawn. The spines of priceless books framed his aquiline profile. Arrogant confidence could have dripped the length of his blade.