his instrument back into Arithon’s lap.
‘If, if, if!’ Arithon spurned the invitation in a recoil that dragged air in a whine across strings as he thrust the instrument aside. ‘Where is Steiven?’
‘Stop evading.’ Incensed, Halliron held to his subject. ‘I’ve searched all my life, and never heard the equal of your natural ability.’
Arithon whipped taut with a speed that belied the indolence he had adopted since his arrival. The weave of moving shadows as he thrust to his feet plunged the painted stag into darkness, leaving hounds with bared muzzles exposed to the merciless candlelight. To Dania he said crisply, ‘If Caolle is available, I’ll speak to him instead.’
Dismayed, the lady instinctively forestalled him. ‘You haven’t eaten, your Grace. Let me bring wine and fresh bread.’
Arithon abruptly shook his head.
He was a man who never used gestures when a verbal backlash would serve better. Alarmed, Dania surveyed his face. ‘You’re unwell.’
‘Which is not your concern, dear lady.’ Arithon caught her hands and kissed her knuckles, inspired to ruthless certainty that his clammy sweat and fine trembling would set her off-balance enough to quiet her. ‘Caolle or your husband, it doesn’t matter which. But I must speak with one of them immediately.’
Silence followed his demand, a rugged war of wills that Halliron finally broke because he misliked risking Deshir’s lady to the edged temper of the s’Ffalenn heir. ‘Steiven and Caolle are closeted in the tent that serves as armoury. They’re taking inventory, and probably won’t mind the interruption.’
Arithon gave the bard a smile of astonishing gratitude. Then he kissed the lady’s hands again. ‘My respect, and my thanks for your hospitality.’ Need before gentleness commanded him as he released his touch and departed.
The lodge-flap sighed closed on his heels, and infused the close tent with the night-scent of dew-soaked evergreen. Lady Dania stared blindly across an emptiness left brilliant with candles, her arms hugged forlornly across her chest. ‘He tries hard to make us think he takes us lightly.’
Wordless in sympathy, Halliron caught her shoulders. He turned her, sat her down and fetched her wine. This once in his life unwilling to seek music to quiet an uneasy mind, he poured a second goblet for himself. ‘It’s fate that’s his enemy, not ourselves.’ He drank deep, to dull a grief he could not bear, that his search for a successor had found its match in a man who had no use at all for an apprenticeship.
Underlit by the glow of a single candle, the war captain of Deshir’s clans crouched, counting unfletched arrows in their bins while Steiven marked numbers on a tally. Caolle was first to look up as the tent flap stirred and admitted a drift of night air. A smile broke through his weathered scowl. ‘Well, well. Look who’s come.’
Arithon stepped through the entry. Burdened with a rolled set of parchments, and in no mood to be subtle under needling, he had done nothing to ease his withdrawal symptoms beyond a pause to drink at the river. The water had not settled well. By that, he knew he had very little time to make his point before weakness forced him to retire. Driven to fast movement to conceal a resurgence of cramps, he chose a table arrayed with swords set aside for the armourer’s attention in the morning. These he swept aside with a belling clangour that made Steiven jump to his feet.
‘Your Grace?’ The clan chieftain left his captain, the tally slate abandoned in his haste.
Caolle tossed aside an arrow, lifted the candle, and followed. His distaste intensified as Arithon shed a cascade of scrolled documents and whipped them flat across the tabletop. The parchments so callously handled were the tactical maps that culminated painstaking labour and days of vociferous debate.
Annoyed enough that his gorge rose, Caolle’s steps became deliberate. ‘If you’re finished with moping for the day, perhaps you’d care to tell us the name of the man presently in command of Etarra’s reserve corps of archers?’
Braced against the table to steady a nasty rush of dizziness, Arithon tried to answer. His throat was already bone-dry. The drink at the river had not been sufficient to satisfy the demands of withdrawal. Warned that his neglect had now set him on dangerous ground, that the effects of herb poisons would have him unconscious if he pushed without care, he looked, but saw no place to sit down.
‘Or have the sulks clouded your memory?’ Caolle goaded. ‘You need not trouble. Our plans have already been set.’
Arithon returned an impatient lift of his head. ‘The commander’s name is Hadig. And you’re going to have to change tactics.’
Caolle gave a gruff, low laugh and at once confronted his clan chief. ‘This womanish daydreamer suggests that our councils have been wasted. Do we leave our arrows uncounted, just to let him show us better?’
Arithon neither acknowledged the insult, nor allowed Steiven’s puzzled regard any interval to unravel his personal state. He reached with a hand forced to steadiness and swept across an inked arc of symbols that his fickle mind twisted into bodies, bent and broken and bathed in congealed blood. ‘Here,’ he half gasped. ‘And here. I’ll suffer no man’s mother or child in the path of Etarra’s armies.’
Lip curled in contempt, Caolle said, ‘You think us gutless as townsmen.’
‘I took an oath!’ Arithon locked eyes with him. ‘I speak out of concern.’
Caolle set down the candle and leaned on bunched hands across the charts. ‘You’d make a prime town governor.’
‘You’ll listen,’ Arithon returned, a jab of command in his tone. ‘Would you ruin your people for sheer pride? My objection has no grounds in sentiment.’
‘Sentiment? Fiends, are you blind?’ Caolle’s scarred fists crashed onto the table top, jarring swordblades in ringing counterpoint while the candle guttered and spattered hot wax across the maps. ‘There are nine-hundred- sixty of us of age to wield weapons. That includes every man of the northeast forest clans, who will not, cannot, even with Ath’s help, get here in time to make a difference. Ten to one odds, had you counted. Dharkaron Avenger couldn’t balance such stakes. And you’ve the puking gall to fly in my face with objections?’
‘Caolle! Recall you address your sovereign lord.’ Steiven reappeared out of shadow with camp stools salvaged from a field kit. He distributed the seats around the table and said as sharply, ‘Your Grace, if you wish changes, speak your reason. Argument serves no purpose here.’
