careful. Now… now, our enemies have been intoxicated by the chaos, mistaking it for our weakness. They become incautious. Aewult’s every effort against the Black Road was hindered-blatantly, fragrantly-by Lannis and Kilkry.”
“I thought his accusations absurd,” Gryvan growled. “Flailings born of humiliation.”
“As might I, sire, had I not witnessed some of it for myself. You know I would not absolve the Bloodheir of blame had he earned it. He did not. I saw the contempt, the defiance, with which he was treated. How else but by treachery can we explain his defeat, when he had ten thousand of your finest warriors at his back? And you’ve heard the same tale I have, of what happened to Aewult’s messengers when they sought out the Lannis boy?”
“In Ive. Yes. Murdered.” Gryvan rubbed his brow. He felt overwhelmed. And his head ached.
“Indeed. Neither Lannis nor Kilkry Bloods has ever acceded, in their hearts, to your family’s rule. And the Crafts… well, your rule has swelled their coffers, yet they have learned not gratitude, but ambition. Arrogance. The Goldsmiths stir up discontent; they send their mobs raging through the streets of your city like wild animals. My people have already heard it whispered in taverns and workshops that the Crafts set those fires themselves, as pretext. But a man whose enemies assemble to assail him is as much benefited as beset, for they reveal themselves.”
Gryvan frowned at his Chancellor.
“You begin to see, do you not?” murmured Mordyn, stepping closer. There was an eager edge to him suddenly. His eyes burned with a passion Gryvan had not seen there since his return from the north.
“See what?” the High Thane asked.
“A thousand years of history have taught us that it takes great men, strong men, to impose order upon this world. It takes men with the will to seize whatever opportunities chaos offers up; the will to bend events to the shape of their own desires. Grey Kulkain did it, forging the Bloods from the horrors of the Storm Years. Your own family has done it, rising from the disasters of the Black Road’s very birth to overthrow Kilkry’s dominion. Such momentous times are come again, sire. Your time.”
Gryvan rose once more to his feet. He clasped his hands behind his back and went to the nearest of the tall windows, through which a bleak light fell. There was his city, his precious city, arrayed before him in all its expansive wonder. His gaze fell upon the gaudy tower the Gemsmiths had recently chosen to adorn their Crafthouse with. A prideful statement, that. Perhaps one of intent also. He chewed his lip.
“The opportunity is here,” he heard Mordyn saying behind him. “If we but have the courage to imagine it.”
“You doubt my mettle?” Gryvan asked darkly without turning round.
“No, sire. Never.”
Gryvan stared down at his black boots. His sons were flawed-he knew that-yet still they were his sons, and entitled to receive from him the same legacy he had inherited from his father: the ascendancy of the Haig Blood; order and security, imposed upon the turbulent peoples of these lands through strength, and through force of will. He could feel his cheeks colouring, a hot flush of rage at the thought that those who dwelled beneath the protective aegis of Haig power would dare to conspire against it.
“I was released by Ragnor oc Gyre’s Captains as a token of their benign intent,” Mordyn said. “The influence of the most bellicose factions within the Black Road is dwindling. They had slipped from Ragnor’s control for a time, it’s true, but that has changed. They understand that they cannot prevail against our martial strength, whatever minor victories they might have won thus far.”
Gryvan closed his eyes against the pounding ache that was building in his skull. His hands, still clasped behind his back, tightened, the fingers bars of steel locked around one another.
“They will retire from all the lands they have occupied,” Mordyn continued. “They will withdraw across the Stone Vale, and make over to you all the territory they have seized. To you personally, sire, not to Kilkry or Lannis. They pledge a permanent peace, on condition that you rule those lands directly and unmake the Bloods that formerly held them. Ragnor knows that without Kilkry and Lannis to stir up these ancient, dry troubles, there can be peace between our peoples. In pursuit of the same quarry, he pledges in his turn to wipe away the Horin Blood.”
“Peace…” rasped Gryvan.
“The better to deal with those enemies that lie more nearly at hand. The Crafts. Dornach. The time is ripe. Everything you have long dreamed of lies before you now, sire. It is all possible, now that they have revealed themselves. We have only to reach out and grasp the future, to make it real.”
“I need…” Gryvan’s tongue stumbled over his own words. There was some part of him that feared the fell anger, the grasping hunger, roiling in his breast. Yet the larger part rejoiced in the scent of crisis, the anticipation of long-held ambitions upon the brink of realisation. Kilkry, Dargannan, Lannis, all swept away. The Crafts humbled. Dornach bloodied, perhaps even subjugated. And King, perhaps? Perhaps even that?
“I need more certainty,” the stubbornly cautious fraction of him said as he turned back to face his Chancellor. “I need to know.”
“We have a day or two,” Mordyn said with a flat smile. He seemed entirely unsurprised by Gryvan’s hesitancy. “No more, I would suggest. And no time at all, perhaps, for one or two matters.”
“Such as?” Gryvan asked. He wanted this to end now. His mind seethed, his temples throbbed. Why was it so difficult to think clearly? He wanted only to retire to his chambers.
“I hear rumours of a plot-fostered by the Goldsmiths, perhaps-to seize Igryn and return him to his lands, in the hope of stirring up yet more enfeebling trouble for us. Allow me to have him removed to In’Vay. Once he is there, out of sight and mind, he can be quietly killed. None will mourn his passing. None who are true friends to the Haig Blood, at least.”
“Very well. My wife no longer finds him amusing, in any case.”
“And recall the Bloodheir from Kilvale, sire. Send word at once. Have him bring a few thousand of his men back here. The greater threat now is from Dornach, perhaps Dargannan; perhaps still closer to home, if the Crafts and those they have suborned think us weak. The people of the city grow more restive with every passing day. We may need Aewult’s swords to cure them of that ill.
“The forces of the Black Road lack both the vigour and the inclination to test him again, and I can set them on the path back to their own lands with a single message. Better yet, if we but halt all movement of ships in and out of Kolkyre, they might yet wipe away the last vestiges of the Kilkry Blood on our behalf, even as they retire. Roaric will quickly fail, if we close the sea to him.”
“I need to know,” the High Thane repeated.
“I believe we can clear away whatever doubts you harbour, sire,” Mordyn said, nodding sympathetically. “There is one here in Vaymouth who surely knows the truth of it, and might be compelled to share it. The Dornachman. Alem T’anarch.”
“The Ambassador?” Gryvan murmured, faintly incredulous.
“You must have the truth. You said as much yourself. Such truths cannot be won easily, or without daring. T’anarch… he has no supporters here, sire, no mobs to rise up in his name. And his masters have never concealed their contempt for us, their envy of our strength.”
“Would you have open war with the Kingship?”
“If this comes to nothing, whatever wounds we open may be healed. But there is war already, I think, open or otherwise. A great many will be rendered carrion by the end of it: those who shy away from the demands of the moment or yield the initiative to their opponents.”
Carrion, thought Gryvan, his weariness briefly pierced by lances of bitter anger. Yes, if there are those who think to test my resolve, that is their destiny. I shall not meekly surrender all that I hold, all that I have won. Let those who imagine otherwise learn the harsh lessons of their error. The weak, the foolhardy, the traitorous, become carrion. Such is the world.
VII
The scout came back into the copse on a lame horse. There was a bloody welt across its hamstring.
“Crossbow,” the rider said by way of explanation as he swung out of the saddle.
