Voyager

Conqueror’s Moon

THE BOREAL MOON TALE

BOOK ONE

JULIAN MAY

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper Voyager An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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This paperback edition 2004

First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2003

Copyright © 2003 by Starykon Productions, Inc

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 9780007378173

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

PROLOGUE: The Royal Intelligencer

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

Conqueror’s Moon

By Julian May

THE TWELVE MOONS RHYME SUNG BY CATHRAN CHILDREN

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE The Royal Intelligencer

In obedience to a command from the throne commuting my death sentence, the Lord Chancellor of Blencathra banished me to the continent two years ago, with an adequate stipend that will continue so long as I keep my mouth shut. Left unsaid was what would happen if I did not. Cutting off my pension would doubtless be the least of it; and I fear it’s only a matter of time before my silence is ensured by more economical means.

Well, if I’m caught, so let it be. I value my life, as every man does, but there’s also a great fatigue having nothing to do with bodily weariness that tempts me to release my grip and allow all the burdens to fall away.

But not yet, I think. Not quite yet.

For prudence’s sake, every morning I perform a shortsighted windsearch encompassing a dozen leagues or so round about my dwelling. I’ve not yet found anything or anyone suspicious. The one minor sigil I managed to take away with me from the palace at Cala Blenholme remains under my bed in a locked lizardwood box. It’s called Night Preserver, one of the non-hurting sort, hardly worthy of the Lights’ notice, primed for defense against assassins dispatching me in my sleep. But a truly competent cut-throat would have little difficulty getting at me during waking hours, so of late I have had to review my situation and decide whether or not I want to retain control of it, or surrender at last.

Surrender is such a seductive option when one is very old.

My years number four score and one, and I’ll certainly die soon of something, whether it be the infirmities of age or foul play. But shall I go unregarded and unsung, in the manner that I lived most of my life … or is there a more amusing option?

The gold of my royal pension has bought me a comfortable house in southern Foraile along the River Daravara, five rooms furnished well, with a peg-legged manservant to cook and keep the place from getting too squalid. This is a pleasant land, warm throughout most of the year and kind to old scars and bone breaks, where the breezes blow soft and musk-fragrant, and folk having arcane talents such as mine are so rare as to be the stuff of peasant legends. But I never before lived a tranquil life, and perhaps my attempt to do so now lies at the root of my present mental unease. Tranquillity, to one of my stripe, is boring. No one is so pitiable as a derring-doer put out to pasture, no one so frustrated as a tired old spy without an audience to impress with his cleverness.

When I first arrived in this over-placid exile, I spent some time each day overseeing my old haunts, especially Cala Palace and its ants’ nest of scheming courtiers and retainers. Not for curiosity’s sake or with any hope of learning fresh secrets, but out of a pathetic longing for those hazards and intrigues that once caused my blood to sing even as my stomach wrung itself like a bile-soaked sponge.

The diversion was a dangerous one, for I am no longer the peerless scryer I used to be, and my own unique talent shielding me from other windwatchers is fading fast, like the other arcane abilities I inherited, all unknowing, from my strange ancestor. If Cathran magickers should catch me spying on the palace, my blood would surely be forfeit. I had to ask myself if this rather tepid species of fun was worth the risk. At length, I decided that it was not.

But the pleasures left to me are so few! I am too frail of body to ride or hunt or even explore the tame jungle surrounding my house. My traitor stomach rebels at rich food. Expensive wines and liquors only put me to sleep without gladdening my spirit. And not even the cleverest bawd from the local house of joy seems able to rekindle the sweet fire in my nethers. There’s really only one source of delight left to me now.

Mischief.

The telling of secrets.

The tearing away of masks.

Why provoke trouble in piddling small ways, when one has the potential to bring on a grand firestorm that will rock a kingdom? Why not stir my sluggish passions by reliving the old dangerous life I loved?

Sitting here on my shaded porch above the languid tropical river, with only indifferent birds and my grouchy housecarl Borve to take note of my labors, I shall write it all down. At the end, if God wills that I finish, I’ll return to the island and publish the story myself. It will be supremely gratifying to revel in the ensuing scandal. Why should I care then if my reward is the sharp blade belonging to an agent of the Cathran throne, cutting my scrawny throat?

Highborn or low, the people of High Blenholme would all know who I am at last.

I was born in Chronicle Year 1112, in the Cathran capital city that was called simply Cala in the days preceding the Sovereignty. My name is Deveron Austrey. Although rumor had it in latter days that I was the by-blow of some wizard, the truth is that my father was a harnessmaker in the palace stables, as was his father before him. This would have been my work as well, had not fate decreed otherwise. My mother was a laundress, and my memories of her are scant, for she died in childbirth when I was five, taking her unbreathing babe with her. Apparently, neither of my parents showed any evidence of arcane talent. My own didn’t evidence itself until I began crossing the threshold of manhood, and I was slow to recognize it for what it was.

My father perished of wildfire fever when I was eleven years old, so I became apprenticed to my grandsire, irascible and half-blind, but still one of the most ingenious leather-workers in the royal household. I had not a tenth of his artistic skill, but I labored dutifully at my trade, urged on by the occasional smack on the ear, one more among scores of insignificant crafters in the stables, until an alert head groom took note of an odd thing.

Horses were uncommonly docile when I fitted them out in harness. Even the most fractious destrier gentled when I took him in hand, and before long I was the one called to saddle up the huge, evil-tempered stallions trained to fight in tourneys with hooves and teeth, as well as the mettlesome coursers preferred by Prince Heritor Conrig and his high-spirited young band of Heart Companions. My gift with horses was really a species of wild talent, the first to manifest itself.

The second talent to bloom was nearly the death of me.

When Prince Conrig was an unbelted youth of nineteen, not knowing what else he was, and I was twelve, still working with leather but also filling in as an undergroom, I had occasion to lead His Grace’s skittish horse to him before a hunt. He spoke to me kindly, and after looking him in the eye. I dared to answer back with what I thought was an innocent observation.

Horrified by what I told him so casually, the prince thought at first to have me killed. (And told this freely to me later, as he swore me to secrecy with a formidable oath.) But even then I possessed a glib tongue and a winning manner, and after close questioning and deep thought Conrig realized that I could be supremely useful to him in a singular way. So he made me his fourth footman, in time dubbing me Snudge because of my artful sneakiness, and thus my later patrons also styled me.

My crabby grandsire, deprived of a useful dogsbody by my promotion to the royal household, predicted that nothing good would come of me aspiring beyond my God-given place. He died a few months later, by which time I had completely forgotten his dire prophecy. Whether it was true or not I leave to the judgment of those who read this tale of mine.

I was Royal Intelligencer throughout most of my life. I fought and fled and skulked and snooped and committed red murder and magical mayhem in the service of King Conrig Ironcrown and his three remarkable sons. I was condemned and reprieved by another of that family, who continues to rule peaceably enough in the wake of the Sovereignty’s dissolution.

I was perhaps the most humble of their arcanely talented servants, but so insidious and necessary that I witnessed — and even secretly helped to bring about — many a regal triumph and defeat. That was in times long past, four thousand leagues to the north, on an island where sorcery was once taken for granted and inhuman presences still share the world with mankind.

Continental readers unfamiliar with my former home may appreciate a brief description of it, and they would also do well to consult a map as the story unfolds. Others may skip directly to the first part of the tale, here following.

High Blenholme, an island in the Boreal Sea, is a rugged, roughly oblong landmass with a broad north-westerly extension. It is about four hundred leagues in width and measures roughly six hundred leagues from north to south. Blenholme means ‘moon island’ in the old Forailean tongue. At that northern latitude, a trick of the eye makes the heavenly orb seem much larger than normal at certain times of the year, and so the moon enjoys a prominent place in local religion and folklore.

What with the wildness of the waters surrounding the island, the reefs and frowning precipices that guard its approaches, and the Salka, Green Men, Small Lights, and Beaconfolk who haunted the place in prehistoric times, High Blenholme was shunned by Continental explorers and would-be settlers until the mighty invasion fleet of Bazekoy the Great sailed into Cala Bay, and he himself planted his standard at the mouth of the River Brent. That portentous event marked Year 1 of the Blenholme Chronicle.

The emperor’s heavily armed, disciplined forces drove the sluggish Salka monsters beyond the central mountain ranges and the Green Men into the Elderwold. The Small Lights were only a minor threat to humankind and learned the virtue of staying inconspicuous, while the mighty Beaconfolk unaccountably gave no resistance at all to the invasion. Perhaps they were in the mood for fresh amusements!

Bazekoy named the fertile southern part of the island Blencathra, ‘moon garden,’ and it soon attracted hordes of farmers, herders, and hunters from the teeming mainland. The discovery of iron ore in the west and rich copper deposits along the River LiAt led Bazekoy to establish mining and smelting operations, and even facilities for manufacturing weapons and armor to further his continental conquests. By the time of the emperor’s death in Chronicle Year 62, Blencathra was a thriving province, exporting not only metals but also grain and many other kinds of valued goods to Foraile, Stippen, and Andradh, and even to other nations more distant.

After Bazekoy’s incompetent successors allowed his empire to disintegrate, Cathra became an independent kingdom — although still attractive to continuing waves of immigrants from the politically turbulent Continent. Over the next thousand years the entire island was gradually taken over by humankind and most of the surviving Salka forced into the fens or the dreary Dawntide Isles far to the east.

Geography divides Blenholme naturally into four realms; but Cathra, south of the dividing range, has always remained the richest, most populous, and most fortunate.

The second kingdom to be established was Blendidion (‘moon forest’) in the north-central part of the island, more austere of clime and having soil mostly thin and poor. It was settled in the mid-500s by rude barbarian adventurers from Stippen, who subdued the scattered Cathran settlements, then married into them. The vigorous newcomers exploited Didion’s vast woodlands and established their fortunes through forestry products and shipbuilding. The land also possessed valuable furs and deposits of tin, which it exported to Cathra as well as to the Continent. In time, it became a prosperous, loosely knit nation of quarreling dukedoms and isolated robber-baronies owing reluctant fealty to the Didionite monarch at Holt Mallburn.

The windswept northwestern peninsula of the island was explored late in the Seventh Century by marine marauders of Andradh who called themselves Wave-Harriers. They discovered gold nuggets and valuable opals along the pebbled shore of Goodfortune Bay, settled the area, and defended it successfully against the navies of Cathra and Didion, which lacked the Harriers’ fighting prowess at sea. Later, the Andradhian incomers discovered the sources of the gold — enormous living volcanos whose effusions warmed certain rivers and created temperate valleys in what was otherwise an arctic wilderness. Sulphur deposits from the geyserlands and saltpetre exuding from rocks in the White Rime Mountains inspired an anonymous alchymist to invent tarnblaze. That eerie weapon, immune to magical defenses, ensured that the upstarts now calling themselves the Sealords of Blentarn (‘moon pool’) and their descendants would keep their bleak but wealthy homeland safe against all attackers.

The fourth island kingdom, tiny Moss in the chill northeastern marshes, was born almost by chance in Chronicle Year 1022. Originally a precarious outpost of Didionite sealhunters, fishermen, and amber-traders, the fortified castle of Fenguard came under the control of a mighty sorcerer named Rothbannon Bajor. He had acquired Seven Stones from the Salka, sigils carved from moonstone capable of high sorcery that drew their power from the Beaconfolk. This man’s demands for tribute from the locals, enforced by hideous atrocities, energized the Didionite authorities, who condemned Rothbannon to death in absentia and sent a warship to carry out the sentence.

Warned of his impending fate by friendly Salka shamans, Rothbannon invoked the dreaded Beaconfolk and used one of the Seven Stones to whistle up a gale that drove the man o’ war onto the Darkling Sands, where all but a handful of the expedition perished. The self-styled Conjure-King of Blenmoss (‘moon swamp’) then demonstrated other of his formidable powers to the awestricken survivors of the shipwreck, and afterwards sent them home to Holt Mallburn in a leaky fishing smack, carrying a list of non-negotiable demands.

The King of Didion paid substantial tribute to the terrible Conjure-King for decades; but when Rothbannon died, his successors proved much less adroit in the art of extortion, since they were afraid of the perilous Seven Stones and the Beaconfolk who empowered them. Didion stopped paying tribute, but decided that reconquering Moss was more trouble than the place was worth. After all, the Mossbacks would have to sell their sealskins and amber to someone — and the traders of Didion were always ready to do business.

The four kingdoms of High Blenholme on occasion squabbled viciously but never went to war — until 1128, when my tale begins. I was at that time sixteen years of age, and had served Prince Heritor Conrig as a fledgling snudge and secret talent for four of them. We were more than master and man, for I alone knew what it was that set the prince apart from ordinary mortals.

Or so I believed.

It was a peculiar time. For three years, in a manner unprecedented, the volcanos of Tarn had been in a state of intermittent eruption, filling the Boreal skies with a haze of dark ash that folklore named the Wolf’s Breath. The phenomenon had previously been very rare and of brief duration, albeit much dreaded in Didion, where prevailing winds carried the ash-clouds eastward, casting a pall over the land that invariably resulted in a failed harvest.

A Wolf’s Breath persisting for three years in a row was a signal calamity, and Didion was finally pushed to the brink of famine. The mighty Sealords of Tarn also faced ruin, since a great proportion of their food was imported at high prices, and they had been forced to abandon most of their gold mining operations until the poisonous exhalations of the eruptions should cease. Even fertile Cathra produced scarcely two-thirds of its usual abundant crop of grain. This was sufficient to feed its own people, but left a diminished surplus available for trade. Only sorcery-ridden Moss, being foggy and poverty-stricken most of the time anyhow, seemed to suffer not a whit from the Wolf’s Breath.

Which was suspicious on the face of it …

Many blamed Conjure-King Linndal of Moss for the misfortune, saying that he was taking vengeance on King Achardus of Didion for having refused to consider Linndal’s daughter Ullanoth as a fit bride for his second son. Others said that the Tamians themselves had triggered the dire event by grubbing too much gold from the bowels of their mountains, so that hellfire seeped up to fill the empty space and spewed forth sky-darkening smoke. The Brothers of Zeth in Cathra, being more learned in science and wishing to instill hope, maintained that the eruptions were a natural distemper of the earth and would surely cease once the subterranean integrants regained their equilibrium.

But the eruptions did not cease.

As catastrophe overwhelmed his country, Achardus of Didion squandered his assets in a desperate attempt to buy food and ward off insurrection among his starving subjects. Eventually, the market for the nation’s raw timber, furs, and tin was glutted. Prompted (as was thought then) by conniving mainland shipbrokers, Didion began building vessels of war. These found an all-too-ready market on the Continent, where the powerful nations of Stippen, Foraile, and Andradh nursed expansionist ambitions.

In Cathra, King Olmigon Wincantor had taken to his bed with the ailment that would ultimately end his life. His Privy Council, riven by factional disputes, was at first unwilling to take effective action, even when Prince Conrig, the able heir to the throne, forcefully pointed out the potential dangers in the situation. What if the Wolf’s Breath blew for a fourth year — or even a fifth? Starving refugees from Didion were already attempting to cross the passes into Cathra. If numbers of them broke through, the rapacious Continental nations, who had long coveted High Blenholme’s natural riches, would probably take advantage of the resulting chaos and launch an attack on the island.

In order to forestall this peril, Prince Heritor Conrig presented his father and the Council with an ingenious plan, which they finally accepted. That the immediate consequences proved disastrous was not the prince’s fault; he was overruled by his conservative elders in the scheme’s implementation. In the wake of the debâcle, he conceived yet another bold stratagem. But this time he determined to carry it out himself.

ONE

Conrig Wincantor, Prince Heritor of Cathra, Earl of Brent, and Lord Constable of the Realm, ate without much of an appetite, picking at the cold roast beef, eel pie, and fine white wastelbread. He had no stomach at all for the cress salad with scallions or the dessert of pears seethed in cranberry cordial. The prince’s only dining companion was his older brother Vra-Stergos, newly ordained Doctor Arcanorum in the Mystic Order of the Brothers of Zeth. No pages served them. They had come to Castle Vanguard on a secret mission and their presence was unknown to the ordinary inhabitants of the northern fortress.

Their meal had been set out in a small chamber lit only by a glazed loophole, adjacent to the castle solar where the council of war was to take place. Neither of them said much, but the prince could not help but notice how Stergos’s eyes lost their focus from time to time, and how he would sometimes hold his head motionless as though listening, even though this arras-hung cubby where they supped was as quiet as winter midnight on Raven Moor.

Finally Conrig said, ‘Gossy, is there something amiss?’

The alchymist had been sitting like a man frozen, his winecup poised halfway to his lips. Now he gave a sudden start and set the drink down with a shaky hand. ‘I don’t know.’ His voice was fretful, but then Stergos had always been a worry-wart. ‘I think I sense a presence somewhere close by, someone possessed of the talent. I said nothing earlier so as not to spoil our dinner.’

‘Perhaps Snudge is watching us, trying to read our lips.’ Conrig flashed an exasperated smile. ‘Damn his impudence! But he means no harm. I’ll admonish him and box his ears later.’

‘I wish you’d left that boy behind at Brent Lodge,’ Stergos complained. ‘It was unwise to bring him along on this crucial mission. Wild talents aren’t to be trusted! He can’t be windwatched so I never know exactly what he’s up to. Deveron’s been badly spoiled by your overindulgence, Con. He needs discipline. At sixteen, he’s quite old enough to enter the novitiate at the abbey—’

‘No,’ said the prince with a firmness that brooked no argument. ‘Deveron Austrey is mine, not Saint Zeth’s, and I alone will command his loyalty, erratic though it sometimes may be. You must never tell your mystical brethren or anyone else that the lad is not a common man. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I need my personal spy, my snudge. He sees things other talents do not — not even you, reverend brother. Folk are wary in the presence of a professed alchymist and windvoice, but who pays any attention to the youngest of the prince’s footmen?’

‘He still thinks of his aptitudes as playthings! One of these days he’ll make a slip and reveal what he is to the wrong person. I’m only trying to protect you, Con.’

‘I know, Gossy. Search the wind one last time for intruders, then you must leave me while I gather my wits for the council.’ The prince spoke evenly, hiding the concern that suddenly touched him. There was someone watching. He felt it, too. Drinking down the last of his watered wine in a single pull, he arose from the table. ‘This cramped room is depressing. Come. Let’s go into the solar. I’ll look at the scenery while you exert your magic.’

They left the inner chamber and stood near the solar’s huge leaded-crystal window, a marvelous thing made of hundreds of polished small panes, each one perfectly transparent. It was Duke Tanaby Vanguard’s particular pride, facing westward so as to give an expansive view of Demon Seat and the lesser peaks in the Dextral Range, silhouetted now against a glaring sunset sky that struck jewel-bright reflections from the collection of silver wine ewers, gilt flasks of ardent spirits, and glass cordial bottles set out by the window for the council attendees.

Stergos cupped both hands over his eyes and stood still, ranging outward. He had been shaved bald for his ordination a moon ago on his thirtieth birthday, and now his head had sprouted fine golden fuzz that gave him a childlike air, even in his imposing crimson robes. Slight of body and round-faced, he had always seemed younger than Conrig, although five years separated them. The two brothers were devoted to one another, in spite of the differences in their temperament.

At length the doctor lowered his hands. ‘It can’t be that knave Deveron riding the wind. It’s another — a mind far more adept — but God knows who it is. It seems that all of the noble guests down in the great hall have done just as Duke Tanaby bade them. None of their retinues include alchymists, windvoices, or other folk of talent, and Vra-Doman Carmorton and the rest of the duke’s own magickers are temporarily exiled to the town. Their scrying powers are meager, and they’re much too far away to see into the castle. As far as I can tell, the only practitioners in all of Vanguard are the young intelligencer Deveron and myself. And yet I’m positive that someone oversees us!’ Stergos smote his brow in vexation. ‘Ah, if only I were not newly frocked, I might serve you more competently, Con. But overseeing is so much more difficult than windspeech—’

‘Never mind, Brother. All will be well.’ The prince paused, turning away to stare at the spectacular vista outside the window. ‘It may be that I know who could be watching. If I’m right, she has no evil intent.’

The doctor’s face stiffened in dismay. ‘Of course! I didn’t think of her. God’s Breath! If only there were another way for us to—’

‘You must not even hint at such a thing, Gossy,’ Conrig chided him. ‘If we gain at last what we have sought for so long, it will be because of her help.’

Vra-Stergos only shook his head, not daring to say more for fear of offending his brother by casting aspersions upon the coauthor of the great new scheme. The accursed woman might even be listening from a far distance as well as watching! Such a feat was alleged to be impossible, but who could tell with Mosslanders? The devilspawn were said to be part Salka, and might very well share the monsters’ inhumanly strong talent.

‘Everything is ready for the meeting,’ Conrig said. ‘I have the wafers secure in my purse and no one has meddled with the wine.’

Stergos’s eyes flickered. ‘Is there no way I can dissuade you from using them?’

‘I respect your misgivings, but you know there was no alternative. Go now and wait with our Heart Companions in the tower. I’ll join you as soon as the council is over and tell you everything. Take the hidden stairs.’

‘May Saint Zeth guide you.’ Stergos touched the golden gammadion amulet of his order hanging at his breast and returned to the inner chamber.

Conrig waited for several minutes and then followed. The latch that opened the concealed passageway was in the curtain wall next to the necessarium, beneath a stone shelf holding a lavabo, a crock of scented softsoap, and fine linen handtowels. He pressed a knob and a low doorway swung open. After listening for footfalls and hearing none, the prince ducked inside and closed the door behind him. Much of the castle and its six great towers could be stealthily accessed via these ‘tween-wall passages and cramped spiral stairways. The things were full of cobwebs and dead insects and rat turds, poorly lit by the occasional inward-looking peephole or narrow slits or oillets in the exterior masonry. Only the duke’s family and their most trusted retainers knew of the secret warren’s existence. Conrig and Stergos and their poor simple brother Tancoron and their sisters Therise and Milyna had used the passages as a playground when they were children visiting their godfather’s castle.

The prince went quickly to the musicians’ gallery above the great hall, thinking to watch the diners at the high table without notice and perhaps discover something of their mood. The small balcony was empty and deeply shadowed at the rear, with only a few discarded pages of music lying on the floor among the benches. There would be no entertainment for the duke’s guests this evening and no dawdling over the meal. Conrig crouched behind a balustrade with upright members carved fancifully into Green Men and other rustic demons and studied the scene below.

Cresset-lamps and candles had been lit, but the lowering sun still shone through tall narrow windows, casting bars of red-gold light across the sixteen people sitting on the dais. The conversation was low-pitched, even along the sideboards where the knights and retainers ate, with only an occasional burst of nervous laughter from the younger ones.

Following the prince’s instructions, Duke Tanaby had summoned the council attendees to table early, saying there would be only simple fare, and cautioning them against heavy drinking that might cloud their brains when such would be sorely needed later. Most of the high lords and great barons, Conrig noted with approval, were following Tanaby’s example of sobriety and drinking water from the castle’s renowned mineral spring — although Parlian Beorbrook, who was Earl Marshal of the Realm, and his lone surviving son Count Olvan loudly demanded refills of their bumpers of mead. Not even Vanguard dared deny them.

Numbers of the noble guests seemed to savor their meal as little as the Prince Heritor himself had done. Old Baron Toborgil Silverside had scarce touched the slices of meat on his silver trencher-plate, and the hovering pages found few takers for the steaming tureen of carp in nettle broth and the bowls of garnished frumenty and platters of apple and cherry tarts that were the final courses.

Neither Duchess Monda nor any other of Castle Vanguard’s ladies were present. The only woman there — and her seated at the duke’s right hand, by Bazekoy’s Blazing Bones! — was the redoubtable Baroness Zeandrise, the Virago of Marley. She was still clad in her stained green doeskin riding habit with a divided skirt, and wore no veil and no head ornament but a glittering jeweled pick nearly the size of a dagger, transfixing her coil of frowsy grey hair.

Conrig knew that the baroness had only ridden into Vanguard at the last moment, when he and Tanaby had nearly despaired of her arrival. Her manner at table was taciturn and forbidding in spite of the duke’s best efforts at hospitality. The prince had debated long with himself before including the Virago among those invited; but his godfather told him to swallow his southern prejudice against a belted female, reminding him that warriors of her sex were far from uncommon among the Didionite barbarians. And besides, Zeandrise Marley commanded fifteen knights and nearly a hundred mounted thanes …

He noted stout Count Munlow Ramscrest and his allies Bogshaw, Cloudfell, and Catclaw. And there were Tanaby’s sons, Swanwick, Hawkhurst, and Grimstane. The wealthy mountain barons Kimbolton and Conistone, with estates bordering those of Beorbrook, were holding close conversation with their powerful overlord. At the far end of the table on the left sat Viscount Hartrig Skellhaven and his cousin Baron Ingo Holmrangel. Their seaside castles and fleets of armed cutters defended Cathra’s far north-eastern coast, and they were themselves rumored to be little better than pirates.

‘So all of those invited did come after all,’ said a soft voice behind Prince Conrig.

He felt the hairs at the back of his neck prickle as a draft of chill air brought a familiar, green-fen scent of vEtiver.

‘It bodes well for the enterprise,’ the voice continued, almost purring with satisfaction. ‘For you know that not even I could compel their alliance. Of course, they haven’t accepted your proposal yet, but I believe that the odds are strongly in your favor — and your plan for taking care of any nay-sayers is most ingenious.’

Still crouched low, Conrig dared not turn around. Suppressed fury tightened his throat. A Sending here? Now, at this critical juncture? Was the woman mad?

‘If you’re seen,’ he hissed, ‘I’m ruined! My brother Vra-Stergos is hidden away with my other Companions in the repository tower, and your Sending could only be attributed to me!’

‘No one will see or hear me, my prince.’ She spoke with a hint of mockery. ‘Your accession to the throne is safe, untainted by any whiff of magical talent.’

He craned about and saw a cloaked and hooded figure standing in a dark niche. The face was invisible and the glowing moonstone sigil that enabled the Sending was out of sight. Slowly he withdrew from the railing and climbed to his feet, keeping well out of view of those below, and went to her. ‘Why are you here?’ His whisper was brusque, to hide the fact that he had been badly startled.

‘I come with good news, as well as some of less happy portent.’ Her hand reached out and caressed his cheek. ‘Affairs in Didion have fallen into place just as we hoped, and you may so inform your council of war. King Achardus will remain at the palace in Holt Mallburn during the crucial time. He has scant motive for traipsing abroad among the faminelands listening to the wails of hungry peasants or the mutterings of mutinous vassals. His sons Honigalus and Somarus are another matter, however. Both have taken ship to the south, probably to seek help from Stippen or another Continental nation in countering your blockade in the Dolphin Channel. Beynor and three senior members of the Glaumerie Guild are accompanying the Didionite princes. My dear brother is playing some game of his own, and he’s probably being well paid for it. He has used a sigil to cast a strong spell of couverture over their vessel, and I cannot penetrate it.’

Conrig muttered a quiet oath. ‘But you will be able to find out what they’re up to?’

‘Eventually. It may become necessary for me to empower another of my own Great Stones in order to learn his plans, but I hope I can use alternate means. The most powerful sigils are activated only through atrocious suffering, and their conjuring puts the user deep in debt to the Lights.’

He felt the familiar thrill of dread at her mention of the awful Beaconfolk. ‘Lady, must you invoke those dire creatures? Is there no other manner of sorcery that will serve our purposes?’

‘None so effective. I call upon the Coldlight Army as rarely as possible, since they’re notorious for twisting petitions and conjurations to unwelcome outcomes. But we must find out what Honigalus and Somarus intend. They are the real power behind Achardus’s throne and they have powerful friends on the Continent. It would do you small good to triumph in the north while disaster strikes the southern underbelly of your unborn Sovereignty.’

‘No,’ Conrig admitted reluctantly. Most of the Cathran navy was at sea, enforcing the blockade against Didion, and the capital city of Cala on the south coast would be vulnerable to a lightning assault from mainland ports.

He was silent, considering other things that her words had brought to mind. Then: ‘Advise me, if you please. None of these council attendees, not even Duke Tanaby or the earl marshal himself, knows that the Edict of Sovereignity was as much your idea as mine. Would you have me tell them?’

A patronizing laugh. ‘I’m not the one who covets the ancient glory of Emperor Bazekoy, my prince. Warriors mistrust sorcery, and for good reason. It’s best that they know nothing of our earlier … strategic consultations, for that might taint the sanctity of your great vision and weaken your authority. You must certainly tell your council of war how I intend to assist the invasion, and my reasons for doing so. But keep the rest secure in your own heart. The unification of High Blenholme is your own dream, after all, and none but you can fulfill it.’

He felt sweat start out on his brow, not from doubt of his own abilities to persuade and command the others, but in a belated flush of apprehension at where this alliance with her might eventually lead.

‘They will ask — my godfather and the earl marshal, at any rate — how you and I came to this marvelous friendship. Lady, what am I to tell them? They know we could never have met face to face. And even though we have made some use of my brother’s arcane talent—’

‘He has always been our go-between! You must convince the others of it. And see that Vra-Stergos is also convinced.’

‘I’m sure my brother has suspected that I possess the talent, that you and I bespoke each other through magical means long before your Sendings appeared to Gossy and me together at the hunting lodge. He’s a timid soul, and he no doubt put the notion out of mind for fear of what the consequences would be. Nevertheless, my brother won’t tell an outright lie about my talent, even to protect me. It would violate his vows to God and Saint Zeth.’

‘Then you must ensure that he does not officiously strive to tell the truth,’ she snapped, ‘while you say what you must to the duke and the earl marshal, and charge your own conscience. And if the new-hatched Doctor Arcanorum will not let be, then you must silence him.’

‘He’s my older brother!’ the prince exclaimed in horror. ‘I love him!’

‘He is a man born with the talent, whose voice carries on the wind and whose mind solidifies the Sending. And by that token he is ineligible for your precious throne of Blencathra. As are you, Conrig Prince Heritor, if your vaunted truth be told.’

‘But I didn’t know!’ His whisper was desperate. ‘Not until—’ ‘Until I came,’ she said, unaware of the real state of things and knowing nothing of Snudge. ‘And I showed you how the audacious dream of your youth might be fulfilled. You listened well to my secret counsel and your scheme prevailed. The Edict of Sovereignty was proclaimed. That its fulfillment was cruelly bungled by imbeciles was only a temporary setback. With my aid you shall set all to rights. And in the end who will care that you possess a small portion of the talent, or that a few necessary falsehoods were told in your great endeavor’s fulfilling?’

He could think of no way to counter what she had said. Gossy would understand. He must understand …

‘Very well. Leave me, then, lady. Be assured I’ll do what is best.’

Again she touched his cheek, smiling, then vanished. The scent of vEtiver remained, sweet and woodsy.

Prey to unspeakable thoughts concerning his beloved brother, he crept back to the balustrade and looked down blindly on the hall for a few minutes more, until Tanaby Vanguard announced to the nobles at the high table that it was time to go to the solar and begin their conclave.

TWO

They entered in an untidy crowd, the Virago and seven other great barons, three viscounts, three counts, and Parlian Beorbrook, the kingdom’s chief military officer, all of them caring nothing for the niceties of precedence as was the way of easygoing northerners. Last came the host of the clandestine gathering, who slammed the tall double doors firmly behind him and shot its twin bolts into place.

‘His Grace will join us in a moment,’ Tanaby Vanguard said, nodding towards another closed door that gave onto the inner chamber. He wore a simple houserobe of russet velvet, a thin man with finely drawn, unreadable features whose nose jutted like an axe-blade. Chestnut hair thickly streaked with grey fell to his shoulders. Unlike most of the other men, he was clean-shaven.

Beorbrook spotted the table of drinks by the window and strode to it purposefully, hauling his dented old silver cup out of his belt-wallet. ‘Is that a Snapevale Stillery flagon that I spy?’

‘Leave be for a moment, Parli,’ said Tanaby, ‘until the Prince Heritor arrives.’

‘How sober do we have to be for this bloody mystery confab anyhow?’ the earl marshal muttered. He was a hale man in early middle age, broad rather than tall, with muscular legs grown bandy from horseback riding, and enormous gnarled hands. Blue eyes cold as an Ice Moon sky were sunk deep beneath shaggy black brows. His beard was also black, although his hair had gone snow-white. He wore a doublet of dark blue leather, intricately worked, having stiff sleeve-wings that emphasized his extraordinary shoulders. His chain of office was conspicuously absent.

‘You must decide the need for a clear head yourself,’ Tanaby told his longtime friend. ‘As for blood, there may be quantities of it in the offing if we here decide so.’

The marshal gave a grunt and some of the others exchanged wary glances or small grim smiles. Except for Vanguard, none of those present were intimates of the prince. They knew only that he favored some sort of retaliatory strike against Didion, and as Lord Constable of the Realm had the power to lead one even if the Privy Council balked — provided that the king himself did not expressly forbid it. Tanaby’s carefully worded messages bringing these northern nobles to a secret meeting had sparked battle-fever in some and skepticism in others, but all had agreed to listen to the prince and decide whether or not to support him in the undertaking.

A fire burned in the broad greystone hearth, before which were sixteen common stools, arranged in a semicircle. In the middle was a single collapsible field-chair fashioned of carved walnut and faded brocade, fronted by a small table. All of the usual furnishings of the solar, save for the sideboard with the liquor, had been removed.

‘I realize we aren’t here for a cozy chat, my lord duke,’ drawled Lady Zeandrise, eyeing the comfortless seats. She still had spurs on her booted feet. ‘But is it necessary for us to perch like a gang of tomtits on fenceposts during this conference?’

There were a few chuckles. Tanaby said, ‘The unusual arrangement, dear Zea, was meant to evoke the lack of coziness we may expect to experience if we agree to participate in the prince’s venture.’

‘I see.’ The baroness kept a straight face. ‘Well, it’s been a dull year in Marley. The harvest’s safely in and ample enough in spite of the Wolf’s Breath, and my knights and thanes are restless and in need of distraction.’ She glanced out the window at the spectacular sky. ‘A pity we only get these magnificent sunsets when the volcanos belch.’

Old Baron Toborgil Silverside said, ‘King Achardus of Didion and his starving people must take faint comfort in such beauty.’

‘Famine smite the lot of them dead,’ growled Beorbrook, ‘and may a hundred thousand vultures shite their bones!’

‘And so let it be forever,’ Count Ramscrest added, in a voice hard as granite.

A respectful silence fell over the group, for everyone knew that the marshal’s two elder sons and Ramscrest’s youngest brother had been in the ill-fated royal delegation presenting the Edict of Sovereignty to the King of Didion. Ramscrest’s brother had left a widow and three small children. As for Beorbrook, only his third son, Count Olvan Elktor, untried in battle at twenty-one and thick as two oaken planks, was now left to inherit the most strategically important duchy in all of Cathra. There was small hope that Olvan would ever fill his father’s boots as earl marshal, and it seemed likely that the office and its great perquisites would pass out of the Beorbrook family with Parlian’s demise.

All at once the door of the inner chamber was kicked open with a sharp rap and Conrig appeared. The Prince Heritor was dressed all in black, as was his custom, and his wheaten hair and short beard looked almost coppery in the ruddy light, a strange contrast to his dark brown eyes. He had two magnums of wine tucked under each arm and a corkscrew dangling from his right hand.

‘Good evening to you all, my friends, and thank you for coming. Be at ease, and let there be no idle ceremony.’ When they continued to stand motionless and uncertain, he said to Vanguard, ‘Godfather, help me cope with these bottles, which I brought specially from Brent Lodge for this gathering. It’s a brisk new Stippenese vintage from the Niss Valley that will quench our thirst without dulling our wits. Time enough for ardent spirits after you’ve all listened to my proposal and made up your minds about it.’

They relaxed then, and there were low-pitched words of greeting to Conrig from the older nobles and diffident nods from the young ones. Cups were drawn from velvet or leather pouches and held out for filling by the prince himself, who called each person by name and made casual talk. Lady Zeandrise had her weathered hand kissed by the royal winebearer and pursed her lips tightly to forestall a smile.

Finally Conrig poured into Tanaby’s own simple beaker of waxed honeywood and let the duke do the honors for him. The prince’s silver cup was lined with gold; a great amethyst formed part of the stem, a talisman against drunkenness … and poison.

‘A toast,’ he said quietly, lifting his drink. ‘To the good sense of those here present, which must determine whether the plan I propose will be acceptable or die aborning.’

‘To good sense,’ Tanaby echoed, ‘but also to daring.’ He had already been taken into Conrig’s confidence and knew some details of the scheme, but had withheld judgment of its merit pending this consultation with the others.

They took their seats in a poorly concealed aura of excitement, with the Prince Heritor seated on the folding chair and the others spread out on either side. Young Baron Kimbolton put more wood on the fire. The sunset was rapidly fading.

‘Do you like the wine?’ Conrig inquired pleasantly.

Most voiced their approval. Count Munlow Ramscrest grimaced and shifted his great bulk so that his stool creaked ominously. His oversized mantle, trimmed with black wolf fur, spread around him like a sledge robe. ‘I would as lief take honest Cathran mead any day over foreign grape-gargle. Still, it does cut the phlegm.’

The others roared with laughter.

But then bluff Ramscrest asked the prince flat out, ‘Your Grace, does this plan of yours involve mere punitive strikes against Didion, or would you wage open warfare?’

‘I intend to mount an invasion,’ the prince replied, ‘and seize Holt Mallburn, and force Achardus to accept the Edict of Sovereignty or have it stuffed down his gullet.’

Ramscrest’s face, as homely and full of bristles as that of a boar, broke into a beatific smile. He said, ‘Oh, yes. Yes indeed!’

Some of the others began to exclaim and call out questions, but the penetrating voice of Parlian Beorbrook cut through the clamor like a brazen trumpet. ‘And what does the King’s Grace think of this brave notion?’

They all fell silent.

The prince set his cup on the small table before him, rose, and began to pace slowly back and forth in front of the fire. He was five-and-twenty years of age, over six feet tall, well-built, and fine of feature as his father, King Olmigon, had been in his youth; but no one in the room would dispute that Conrig Wincantor far surpassed his sire both in strength of character and in mental acuity. In recent years the king had become capricious and vacillating, prone to following dubious advice from certain favored members of his Privy Council, and shunting important matters aside while he dithered over some triviality.

Olmigon had agreed to Conrig’s Edict of Sovereignty proposal only after months of dispute. It was the king who had made the disastrous decision that the royal delegation bearing the Edict to the court of Didion should be small and accompanied only by a token force of warriors; and it was the king, a fine naval tactician in his prime, who had decided that Cathra’s response to the delegation’s slaughter should be a sea blockade rather than a land invasion of the northern kingdom.

Conrig said, ‘Before answering that question, Earl Marshal, I must impart to you melancholy tidings. Since you’ve been busy for the past months keeping Great Pass secure from bandits and Didionite incursions, you may not know that King Olmigon has lately experienced a worsening of that abdominal rupture which has so long afflicted him. The royal alchymists are zealously applying both natural science and sorcery, but the latterday weight-gain of my father makes treatment more difficult than in past years.’ He took a poker and pulled the smoldering logs together so that they might burn better. ‘King Olmigon is in great pain much of the time. He continues to conduct important state business from his bed, however, refusing medicine that he fears might dull his mind, even as the suffering itself prevents him from straight thinking. Queen Cataldise is at his side day and night.’

Dying! They all had the identical thought.

The prince turned about and let his eyes rove slowly over those seated. ‘However, my lady Maudrayne has sent to Tarn for a healer of special talent, and if God wills, the King’s Grace will be restored to health. I command you not to broadcast tidings of his sad disability beyond this room. Only keep him in your prayers.’

And remember who it is that will succeed to the throne of Cathra when Olmigon does sing his Deathsong.

Nods and murmurs.

‘It was my personal decision,’ Conrig continued, ‘as well as that of a certain other high-ranking member of the Privy Council, not to trouble the king with this new matter until I have consulted with you all and determined whether or not the invasion proposal is practicable. As Lord Constable of the Realm, acting with the covert approval of Chancellor Falmire, who is the only one of my father’s advisors with the brains to understand the situation, I have the power to summon this extraordinary council of war. The persons I chose to invite are those in a unique position to render service to Cathra — to redress the atrocious insult done to our kingdom by Didion, and assure the security of the entire island.’

Whisperings. None of them were fools. Unlike the intrepid northerners, who had always borne the brunt of defending Cathra’s border, the lords of the south had grown complacent and soft from long years of martial inactivity. They were businessmen, tending to their varied commercial ventures, not fighters. With the coming of the Wolf’s Breath, worried by the decline in their private fortunes and too shortsighted to understand the potential danger from the Continent, the southerners were in no mood to spend money re-equipping and training their knights and thanes as an invasion host.

‘As you all know,’ Conrig continued, after a pause, ‘the impetus for the Edict of Sovereignty came originally from me. From my youth I have idolized Emperor Bazekoy the Great, who unified the nations of the mainland, brought civilization to our own island, and chose to die here for love of it. It has long been my dream to bring all of Blenholme together and return it to the glory of Bazekoy’s time.’

‘The Emperor,’ Munlow Ramscrest grumbled, ‘has been dead for over a thousand years … most of him, at any rate! And the Blenholme of his day no more resembles our own than children’s fables resemble the sacred Chronicle.’

‘Count Ramscrest speaks the unwelcome truth, as usual,’ the prince conceded, to universal amusement. ‘Our world is more densely populated and our politics more complex. Nevertheless, even the marble-domes on my father’s Privy Council eventually agreed that the time was ripe for a move to Sovereignty. Three years of the Woff’s Breath have brought tragedy to Blenholme — but also an unprecedented opportunity. Didion is at the brink of civil war. The gold-coffers of the Sealords of Tarn are near empty with the closing of the mines. Even in Moss—’

‘Who cares about Moss?’ Baron Wanstantil Cloudfell sneered. He was a haughty beanpole who dressed with great elegance and affected a foppish manner. ‘Let the Conjure-King use sorcery to make the sun shine on his stinking swamps, and may he have much joy in the fulfillment. My prince, don’t tell me you’d bother taking that soggy nest of magical mountebanks into the Sovereignty!’

‘As it happens, Lord Cloudfell, the kingdom of Moss would play a crucial role in unifying Blenholme.’

‘The hell you say!’ Beorbrook exclaimed. ‘Does this scheme of yours depend on vile Mossback enchantments, then?’

The prince fixed the earl marshal with a level look, saying nothing, until the veteran general looked away, his jaw clenched and his brow like thunder.

‘Hear His Grace out, Parli,’ urged Vanguard. ‘It’s true there are arcane elements in his plan, but no invoking of the Beaconfolk or anything else an honest warrior could scruple at. Carry on, Godson.’

‘Very well,’ said the prince. ‘As you know, the three Wolf’s Breath years have by no means left our own land of Cathra untouched. Our fields have produced significantly less grain. Our exports to Tarn, our favored — and wealthy — trading partner, left almost nothing for Didion. That nation has been forced to import foodstuffs from the Continent.’

‘And the required coin of payment,’ said Count Norval Swanwick impatiently, ‘is Didionite warships. Yes, yes, and all of us know what use Foraile and Stippen might make of them. Your Grace isn’t the only prince harking back to Bazekoy’s days of glorious conquest. The emperor was, after all, a Forailian by birth.’

‘It was to squelch such harkings,’ Conrig said, ‘that I pressed for the Edict of Sovereignty.’ And he quoted from memory. ‘ “For the benefit and security of all Blenholme, and to thwart those Continental opportunists who might think to take advantage of the current natural disaster afflicting our island, the Kingdom of Blencathra extends its merciful hand to the suffering people of its neighbor, Blendidion, and vouchsafes it prompt paternal succor and relief, as Blendidion acknowledges vassalage in the new, benevolent Sovereignty of High Blenholme, and accepts Olmigon Wincantor as its Liege Lord.”’

‘But they didn’t, did they?’ Viscount Skellhaven pointed out, with sour satisfaction. ‘Not without a Cathran army and a train of grain wagons coming at them over Great Pass along with your precious Edict.’

Even though he had ridden into Castle Vanguard on horseback like all the others, he wore salt-stained seaboots, the wide pantaloons favored by sailors, and a silk scarf tying back his long hair. His attire was of good quality but shabby, as if to reinforce his perennial pose of being ill-used and unappreciated by the Crown.

Beorbrook said, ‘We all know how the King of Didion responded to Cathra’s declaration of Sovereignty. He killed our people and stuck their heads on pikes above Mallmouth Bridge for the crows and seagulls to eat, and fed their poor bodies to the crabs.’ The earl marshal tossed off the remainder of his wine, and his son Olvan hastened to bring more, then served the few others who lifted their cups with all that was left in the last bottle.

‘It was six months ago that my sons and the others died,’ Beorbrook went on. ‘The Crown’s blockade of Didion isn’t working — no offense, Skellhaven! — because there’s too much water to cover and the bastards are better sailors than we are. Now that Achardus knows for sure we’re out to topple him, you can be sure that he’ll be on the lookout for a land invasion as well. I can assure Your Grace that the Didionite mountain fortresses beyond Great Pass are manned and alert, in spite of the terrible conditions prevailing in their lowlands. If need be, King Achardus will rally the timberlords from Firedrake Water. Their thanes and stump-jumpers fill their bellies with venison and wildfowl rather than dearly priced bread, and they’re in fighting trim despite the Wolf’s Breath. It’s only in the valley of the River Malle and in the large coastal cities that folk are starving. Now, it seems to me that we’ve already missed our best opportunity to strike at Didion. We should have been poised to come at them from both sea and land if they refused to accept the Edict of Sovereignty.’

‘The King’s Grace deemed such a course too expensive,’ Conrig said, smiling without humor.

‘Of course he did,’ Skellhaven said bitterly. ‘Same reason Ingo and me never get the brass we need to do a proper job patrolling the northern sealanes! The king won’t raise taxes on the rich merchants and trader-lords who curry his favor.’

Count Norval Swanwick climbed to his feet. Vanguard’s son and heir was an experienced battle-leader who had often fought at the side of the earl marshal, defending both Great Pass and the Wold Road to Tarn. ‘May I speak, my prince?’

‘Please do, my Lord Swanwick. All of us know that you and your valiant brothers have fought many a skirmish against Didionite robber-barons and Green Men. I have great respect for your opinion.’

‘Here’s what I’m afraid will happen if we invade Didion by land: At the first hint that we’re on the move, their arcane talents as well as their best fighters will rush to meet us at Castlemont beyond Great Pass. Even if we’re aided by the magical flummery of Mossland’s Conjure-King, we can’t hope for any element of surprise. The country in that region is so open, they’ll see us coming from leagues away. And there are no strongpoints between the frontier and their Castlemont fortress where our forces might safely encamp to beseige the place.’

Many spoke up in agreement.

‘Furthermore,’ Swanwick went on, ‘the earliest we could launch an invasion is in spring — late next Wind Moon, when the mountain snows will have melted and the mud dried. But by then our granaries will be sore depleted after winter. I’m sure Your Grace realizes that there will be no chance of foraging in the faminelands of Didion as we march eastward toward Holt Mallburn. Even if we’re victorious at Castlemont, enemy forces could easily sever our supply line over the mountains while we engage the main host of Achardus.’

There were gloomy comments from the others. But the prince cut them off with a ringing voice. ‘We can take them by surprise!’

‘How?’ asked Swanwick.

‘I would not lead a large army but a smaller, swift-moving force of some five hundred picked warriors. We would penetrate Holt Mallburn in a lightning raid and seize Achardus, his entire family, the court officials, and the merchant-lords who control the nation’s commerce. And we would not invade Didion in spring … but within five weeks, when they have no reason to expect us. My plan is not to march through Great Pass and then battle our way two hundred and sixty leagues through the enemy heartland. I plan to invade through Breakneck Pass, above this very Castle Vanguard, along a route less than one-third of the distance to the Didionite capital. The road is admittedly more rugged, but also more meagerly defended.’

‘Over Breakneck?’ the earl marshal exclaimed in disbelief. ‘There is no road — only a poor track that is often little more than a goat-path! And in late Boreal Moon we would risk fierce rains and washouts, snowstorms driven by hurricane winds, or — God help us — those sudden ice-mists that freeze a man and beast to glazed statues before they realize their mortal peril.’

The pass in the eastern reaches of the Dextral Range was indeed a shortcut to Holt Mallburn, but so steep and hazardous that only couriers, smugglers, and the bravest of legitimate traders made use of it. Almost all land commerce between Cathra and and its northern neighbors was through Great Pass, north of Beorbrook Hold.

The prince said, ‘The Wolf’s Breath has upset the seasons of our island in many ways, significantly delaying the onset of winter in the high country. Favorable weather will prevail over Breakneck Pass at least until Leap Day of the Boreal Moon. I have been assured of it.’

‘By the Conjure-King of Moss?’ Lady Zeandrise inquired softly.

Conrig continued without responding to her. ‘Our fighting force will consist only of mounted warriors, lightly armored for the sake of speedy travel. We’ll have no foot soldiers. Strong mules and ponies will carry supplies in the rear. We’ll move very quickly once we cross the frontier and strike without warning. There is only one small mountain outpost between Breakneck Pass and Castle Redfern, and the fortress itself is poorly sited, vulnerable to a surprise attack during fog.’

‘Fog!’ Beorbrook’s eyes narrowed. ‘And we can count upon fog?’

‘Oh, yes,’ the prince reassured him. ‘And not the dreaded freezing mists, but a warm concealing shroud, through which our army will ride on muffled hooves, led by friendly guides. We’ll seize Castle Redfern and use it as a staging area for the main assault upon Holt Mallburn, after we have briefly rested.’

‘What of Redfern’s windvoices?’ asked Baron Bogshaw. He was a hulking presence whose face was disfigured by a livid diagonal scar from a swordcut that had blinded his left eye. His lands, like those of Ramscrest and Cloudfell, lay along the mountainous frontier between Cathra and Didion. ‘And the foe may have talented ones posted at their outpost as well. Once they spot us, they’re sure to windspeak the alarm, even if our covert crossing of the pass is successful.’

‘Any Didionite windvoices along our line of march to Redfern will be silenced before our arrival,’ said Prince Conrig. ‘And so will those at the castle.’

‘Ah …’ A soft sound from many throats.

‘However, it will be up to us to make certain that no ordinary foemen escape and give warning in a commonplace manner. When we leave Redfern, we’ll move like ghosts through the mist, down from the mountains to the Coast Highway leading to the capital. We’ll cross over the great Mallmouth Bridge — its gate will be opened for us by our magical ally — and when we reach the inner city we’ll set selected parts of it afire as a distraction, using tarnblaze bombshells that each one of us will carry. A portion of our force under Lords Skellhaven and Holmrangel will press toward the quay, where they’ll use their nautical expertise to seize or destroy whatever ships are tied up there or moored in the harbor. The rest of us will take the palace, capture King Achardus, his two sons, and the other royal officials, and force Didion to surrender to the Sovereignty.’

‘Great God!’ said old Toborgil Silverside. His sunken eyes were shining. ‘What a glorious feat that would be!’

‘We’re to accomplish all this under cover of fog?’ Munlow Ramscrest was dubious. ‘In a strange city notorious for its twisted maze of streets?’

Conrig inclined his head. ‘As I’ve said, we will have guides. From the summit of Breakneck Pass to the raised portcullises and open barbican gates of Holt Mallburn itself.’

Ramscrest persisted. ‘What manner of guides? Creeping Mosslander wizards bearing magic lanterns?’

‘Nay,’ said the prince. ‘I may not speak of the guides to you yet, but I’m assured of their assistance. They are to meet us at the top of Breakneck Pass, and if their aspect provokes mistrust among you, then I pledge to abandon this enterprise forthwith.’

‘It’s magic, true enough,’ said Lady Zeandrise, her mouth quirked by a roguish smile, ‘but not so outlandish as to put off our knights and thanes, eh, brothers? Fog, eldritch pathfinders and gate-openers, cold steel, and hot tarnblaze! A lightning thrust into Didion, and Holt Mallburn waiting like a sleeping babe … Can we be sure King Achardus will be in residence?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Conrig dryly. ‘He’s there now and he has little incentive to leave his stronghold. At least it’s well-stocked with food and drink.’ There was scattered laughter among the council, for the gigantic Didionite king was an infamous trencherman. ‘As we prepare to sally forth from Castle Redfern, I’ll be kept informed by windspeech of the king’s precise whereabouts, as well as that of the merchant-lords and our other special targets. My brother Vra-Stergos will accompany the expedition, as will Duke Tanaby’s trusted alchymist, Vra-Doman Carmorton.’ He said nothing of Snudge.

‘And will these good Brethren also use windspeech to transmit reports of our daily progress to the Conjure-King?’ Skellhaven inquired archly.

Conrig paused, then spoke with reluctance. ‘King Linndal of Moss has nothing to do with this plan. Most of the time he is raving mad and confined to his rooms. He spends his lucid days voicing Salka sorcerers in the Dawntide Isles, trading arcane secrets. Our Mossland collaborator is another.’

‘Who?’ Beorbrook demanded.

‘His daughter, Princess Ullanoth.’ The prince took up his cup and sipped from it, but his eyes did not waver from the skeptical face of the earl marshal.

‘And what does this benevolent lady ask in exchange for her good offices?’

‘That Moss receive First Vassal status in the Sovereignty, with a reasonable guerdon paid annually, and that we support her claim to the throne of Moss above that of her younger brother, Beynor.’

‘It seems a modest enough boon,’ Lady Zeandrise remarked. She frowned, then added, ‘Perhaps too modest.’

Beorbrook addressed Vanguard. ‘Did you know of this, Tanaby? Your royal godson consorting with a Mosslander witch?’

‘I knew,’ the duke replied stolidly. ‘An unlikely ally, perhaps, but the Lady Ullanoth is a powerful sorceress and there seems no good reason for her to contemplate using us treacherously.’

Munlow Ramscrest exploded in a coarse guffaw. ‘Why should we give a mule’s fart who rules that godforsaken corner of our island? Fens and frogs and peddlers of hocus pocus and gimcrack amulets! Let the Conjure-Princess have the poxy place and welcome. As for her bribe, we can wring it out of vanquished Didion.’

Baron Sorril Conistone, a middle-aged peer who was famed for his scholarly bent, had remained quiet as the prince set forth his plan and the others made comments, seated on a stool at the far left of the blazing hearth where he was almost lost in shadow. Now his deep voice rode over the laughter that had greeted Count Ramscrest’s remarks.

‘Your Grace, are you certain that this Ullanoth will require nothing more of us?’

‘She has asked for no other thing, Lord Conistone,’ Conrig said. ‘I swear it on my honor as Prince Heritor of Cathra.’

Zeandrise Marley remarked, ‘Without the lady’s help, we’re flat skinned, my lords, having not a hope in hell. Do any of you know a better plan?’

‘If we’re to venture an invasion at all,’ said Baron Tinnis Catclaw, ‘then it must be in the manner described by His Grace. The scheme is a goodly one, to my mind, although I would wish it not so dependent upon the whims of an alien sorceress.’

Someone sighed.

‘And how are we to pay for this grand enterprise?’ Viscount Skellhaven asked, not bothering to hide his ill will. ‘Certain lords and their knights will loot Mallburn Palace of its treasures, while my fighting sailormen and I merely torch the Diddly waterfront. Are we supposed to be content with the spoils of empty warehouses, worm-eaten scows, and burnt-out hulks?’

‘Our mission is not to pillage the city,’ Conrig declared. ‘It is to seize it and to force the capitulation of Achardus, his state officials, and the powerful Guild of Merchants. This I vow to do. This I will do with the aid of you stalwart northerners, who are familiar with mountain terrain and the battle tactics needed for a swift and stealthy assault against an unsuspecting foe. As for your material reward, it will be more than generous. I’ll not forget those whose bravery helped cement the Sovereignty of High Blenholme. This I also vow, on the head of Emperor Bazekoy the Great.’

Skellhaven’s thin lips stretched in a disagreeable smile. ‘A very impressive oath, Your Grace. Please don’t take me wrong. I’m a poor man, only concerned for the welfare of my followers. All too often the Crown has made fine promises to us, and then …’ He shrugged.

‘I am not King Olmigon,’ Conrig said. A few of them drew breath at his lack of respect, but he turned away from Hartrig Skellhaven and let his gaze sweep them all. ‘The time has come, my friends, for you to decide. Please say — beginning with you, dear Godfather-whether you will join me in an invasion of Didion.’

‘I will come,’ said Tanaby Vanguard, ‘along with one hundred of my knights and thanes.’

‘And I with forty,’ said Norval Swanwick. ‘Plus farriers, cooks, and leeches well able to fight.’

‘Ramscrest pledges sixty mounted warriors, and twenty sumpter-mules well provisioned.’

‘The Virago of Marley will follow you with a force of eighty mounted men,’ Zeandrise declared, ‘plus thirty stout pack-ponies and their armed drivers.’

‘My festering leg precludes my personal participation,’ said Conistone, ‘but I will send my four sons, ten knights of my household, twenty fighting thanes, and five farriers.’

The others chimed in their assent one by one, some charged with eagerness and others, like Skellhaven and Holmrangel, with an air of having been coerced, until the number of warriors pledged reached well over four hundred, with a wholly adequate supply train and remounts. The last to speak was Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook.

‘Your Grace,’ said he, ‘I am a cautious man, but not an ignorant one. I’ve read the Chronicle from beginning to end, the histories of more than a hundred Cathran rulers. But none of them, I think, will be the match of you if you can pull off this mad stunt. I pledge thirty knights, the same number of fighters mounted on sturdy coursers, and fifty mules loaded with goodly fodder for man and beast … and I pray I’ll live to hail you Sovereign of High Blenholme.’

The council of war surged up from their seats and cheered.

Conrig nodded in ironic acknowledgement of the backhanded compliment. ‘Your agreement to my proposal gladdens my heart, Earl Marshal.’ He opened the ornate black velvet purse that hung from his belt. ‘I have here wafers of the most exquisitely flavored pyligosh, which I will share with you all as a token of our new fellowship.’

Almost solemnly, he handed out the rare small sweetmeats, each of which was wrapped in a green cloth square and tied with golden cord. ‘Please eat them now to symbolize our unified resolve — and then let’s see what manner of liquid cheer Duke Tanaby has set out for us. I, for one, am now in need of refreshment stronger than wine.’

The nobles sprang up from their stools and crowded toward the laden sideboard, leaving only Zeandrise Marley to stand before Conrig, holding her wrapped tidbit. She spoke in a voice that was almost inaudible.

‘My prince, do you know why I am called the Virago?’

He smiled. ‘I was told that when your wealthy young husband died, and you were left childless, a certain uncouth mountain lord came a-wooing. You spurned him, and he returned with an army to press his suit. Whereupon—’

‘I rallied the knights and thanes of my barony and whipped the britches off the whoreson. And I defeated another force led by my late husband’s saucy cousin, who tried to lay claim to my fiefdom through some trivial point of law. After that, Vanguard gave me the warrior’s belt with his own hand, and I’ve held Marley against all comers for the past twenty-two years. I’m a hard woman, Prince Heritor.’

Conrig bowed his head in acknowledgment, still smiling.

‘And I think you’re a hard man.’ She held up the green-wrapped sweetmeat. ‘What would have happened to those who opposed your invasion scheme? Would they have been given wafers wrapped in a different color of cloth — or with cord tied in a special knot?’

He stepped closer to her, and for an instant something flickered in his handsome face. She stood her ground and his ambiguous expression was transformed into a broad grin. He unwrapped his own wafer and bit into it with evident enjoyment. ‘Absolutely delicious. And much more efficacious against noxious substances than drinking-cups with amethyst talismans. That’s just a silly superstition, as any alchymist can tell you. You may ask my brother Stergos, if you doubt me.’

Her eyes widened. ‘So it was the wine.’

‘Which I partook of, along with the rest of you. The effects of the subtle poison would not be obvious for at least two days, when the unfortunate nay-sayers were well on their journey home. Thus no suspicion would fall upon me or Tanaby Vanguard — who, by the way, knew nothing about my precautionary measures. Earlier, I pressed him to take prisoner anyone who opposed my plan, but he wouldn’t agree to it. My godfather is too trusting and chivalrous. But then, he doesn’t aspire to be the Sovereign of High Blenholme.’

And such a one must be ruthless?’

‘Very.’ He rested both hands on her shoulders in a gesture that might have passed for affection. ‘Are you going to tell the others what I did?’

Her worn face remained calm. ‘No … I won’t tell them. But I think it would bode well for our future comradeship — and the Sovereignty — if you did.’

They stared at each other without speaking. Then he took her arm and led her gently toward the waiting table of drinks where the others were gathered. ‘I’ll think about it, my lady. And you won’t forget to eat your wafer, will you?’

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