dismiss a number of Goeren-yai Royal Guards, Damon had insisted as many remain as possible. Koenyg had already had a list compiled, it seemed, and had spent half the dark hours summoning, ordering and shouting, trying to sort out the loyal from the disloyal. Even when it became apparent that some Verenthanes, too, had abandoned their posts, he only dismissed Goeren-yai guardsmen.
Then had come news that some other Goeren-yai guardsmen, infuriated by the dismissals, had taken leave to ride hard after the traitors and more were joining them. Some northern cavalrymen had intercepted them, with sporadic battles erupting by torchlight across the fields and into the forest below. That tally was twenty dead from both sides, with rumours spreading fast of how the Banneryd cavalry had executed several wounded guardsmen, not helping matters at all. The desertions had only ended after a furious row between Captain Myles of the Royal Guard and Koenyg, during which (it was said) Koenyg had threatened to dismiss Captain Myles as well, to which Myles had countered that all the Royal Guard would desert if he did so.
It had been a long, exhausting, bloody, rumour-filled night, and the day did not promise any better. Already there were reports of murders amongst the few Goeren-yai of Baen-Tar town, the finger of suspicion pointed immediately at the northern soldiers accommodating there. The rest of the Goerenyai community were sheltering in the houses of Verenthane friends, fearing for their lives. The only positive Damon could see was that the soldiers themselves, with the predictable exception of the northerners, had not been killing each other. From the look of this lot, he reckoned that Koenyg would have his work cut out for him if he expected them to go tearing off in pursuit of their friends any time soon.
'Not bad men,' the Fyden sergeant insisted now. 'Good men. Verenthanes…° he shrugged, helplessly. 'Verenthanes kill Lord Krayliss, kill Taneryn men, go Sashandra Lenayin to dungeon, now attack Udalyn.' Another helpless shrug. 'If I Goeren-yai, maybe I traitor too.'
'Why don't you go and fight with them then?' Myklas said with irritation. 'If you feel so sorry for them.'
'Maybe I do,' said the sergeant, with a dark glower at the youngest prince. 'Maybe I start now. Boy.'
Damon put a hand on Myklas's shoulder, pulling him back. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' he said, keeping his voice even. 'You have every right to be angry. None of us like this situation.'
'Aye,' the sergeant muttered. He spat into the fire. 'Aye, Prince Damon.'
'You just back down to him?' Myklas said incredulously as they rode back along the road between paddock walls. 'Who's the prince here, you or him?'
'Every Lenay man is a prince,' Damon said darkly, casting his gaze across the desolate scene. 'We don't rule by divine right, Myk, we rule on tolerance. They tolerate us, not the other way around. It's always been this way.'
'Yeah, well, maybe it's time it changed,' Myklas said angrily.
'Don't be a stupid little shit,' Damon said coldly. 'If you'd kept spitting in that sergeant's eye, he'd have cut your fucking head off, Prince Myklas, and devils take the consequences. In the last hundred years we nobles have begun to forget this fact and now we're paying for it.'
'You're defending them?' Myklas said incredulously. 'You're defending what they've done? What Sasha's done?'
'I'll tell you this, little brother,' Damon said starkly, 'thank the gods Sasha's leading this. The reason we aren't knee-deep in blood right now is Sasha. I've been reading a lot of history lately, the kinds of things our wonderful holy scholars never taught us and don't want us to read. Pagan history, before the Liberation. We've forgotten what honourable Lenays do when they've become sick of being kicked in the balls. So long as that column has Sasha at its head, she might keep it from becoming a bloody nightmare across the whole kingdom. But if something happens to her, it could be the end of Lenayin as a single kingdom, and sure as hells the end of Lenayin as a Verenthane kingdom. If it truly ever was.'
Across an open stretch of lower slope, past isolated trees and water catchments that shone the dull silver of the overcast morning, rode the king. There were royal banners of purple and green, and a horde of Royal Guards astride some of the finest horses of any Lenay stable. The king wore black, tall and straight in the saddle astride a fine dappled grey. Soldiers across the slope stared as he passed and some cheered. Behind him, a host of nobility also rode, several hundred in number. The colours of their clothes seemed incongruous, a sea of courtly reds, blues, greens and golds across the dark green fields. Most, Damon suspected, had not changed from the previous day's finery. Last night, no one had slept.
'Look at them,' Damon muttered, reining to a halt on the rise, with a good view over the royal procession along the lower slope. 'Too scared to venture amongst their own soldiers except in force. They're more keen to lick the king's heels than they are to question their own men.'
'Still, it's good to see Father out on a horse,' Myklas said uncertainly. 'It's been a long time.' He paused. 'In fact, I can't think of the last time.'
Some of the nobles were riding amongst their own soldiers, whatever Damon's disdain. A small group of them came galloping across a near field, a flash of green Tyree colours amidst white canvas tents.
'Prince Damon!' called the handsome man with the square jaw and cool eyes who led them. They reined up opposite the low stone wall that separated the road from the field. Six men. Of the followers, Damon recognised Lord Redyk, but not the others, who were younger. Family, most likely. Loyal swords in uncertain times.
'Lord Arastyn!' Damon said coldly. 'What can I do for you?'
'Great Lord Arastyn,' Lord Redyk corrected, his face flushed red against his white whiskers.
'Your men don't think so,' Damon observed. 'Lost them all, have you?' Lord Redyk turned even redder. Lord Arastyn's dark eyes were cold. The Tyree contingent to ride to Baen-Tar had been one of the smallest. The Falcon Guard were already garrisoning Baen-Tar, so only a token fifty extra soldiers had accompanied Tyree's lords and ladies on the road. Those soldiers had been hand-chosen, almost all of them Verenthane. Now, all were missing. Loyalty to one's faith was important in Lenayin, but for many, loyalty to one's province was more. The Tyree soldiers had left no doubt who they thought were the traitors to the proud name of Tyree.
'Your great-grandfather, King Soros, decreed that the provincial lords shall rule their provinces directly,' Lord Redyk growled. 'We have so decreed. Lord Arastyn is now the Great Lord of Tyree, and the family name of Nyvar is erased, dishonoured beyond repair. It is done, and none other can unsay it!'
'Words are easy, sitting alone on your horse when all your men have deserted,' Damon replied. 'There is an old Goeren-yai tale of the mad chieftain Shymel, who left his clan to go and live on a mountain top and declared himself ruler of all the stars and the moon. Some say he is still there, ignored by all, an irrelevant speck on his peak. No one cared, my lords. Certainly not his clan, who did not miss him, and the stars and the moon least of all.'
Lord Arastyn raised a hand, forestalling Lord Redyk's angry reply. Arastyn had always been loyal to Family Nyvar, his eldest son was to wed Jaryd's sister, and he had been a close friend to the late Great Lord Aystin Nyvar. Damon stared closely at the man. Had his loyalty been a lie? Or had he chosen this path simply to save his own skin, and the skins of his family? Some rumours said that his fellow lords had chosen him to be the successor because it would look less suspicious for a friend of the dying great lord to take his place. Surely such an old, loyal friend could not have ordered the destruction of Family Nyvar?
'The king has asked for an explanation of events,' said Lord Arastyn, in calm, measured tones. 'You were present, Your Highness, at the folly of the traitor and murderer Jaryd Nyvar. Your answers will be required.'
Damon could barely restrain his anger. 'You killed his little brother,' he retorted. 'Dare you call him a murderer?'
'Our actions were within the king's law,' Arastyn replied, with stony calm. 'An accident occurred. The boy was foolish. It is regrettable, yet the fact remains that Jaryd Nyvar's actions were traitorous, and they were murder. You were unwise to prevent us from killing him, Prince Damon. Your own actions shall be considered before the king's justice. Best that you consider your own position.'
'How can a man be a murderer when he charges thirty armed nobles all alone?' Myklas asked suddenly. 'Were the men he killed unarmed?'
'It was against the king's law,' Arastyn insisted, 'and therefore murder.'
'Sounds like a damn brave man to me,' said Myklas. Lord Redyk looked uncomfortable. Lord Arastyn seemed to grind his teeth. Damon nearly smiled. Myklas had that damnably annoying habit of saying what he thought. Usually that was no problem, because usually he didn't think much.
'I shall answer my father's enquiries as I see fit,' Damon told the lords, coldly. 'Appeals and treaties shall not sway me. I have better things to worry about than Tyree's succession, my lords. Good day.'
'Pack of cowards,' Myklas observed once the Tyree lords had departed and the princes were riding downhill
