“It was they who made the mistake,” said Stepan, simply. “And I doubt there’ll be any more mistakes this evening. Even so,” he turned around to face the prisoners, “you could cut these two down now and they’d probably recover.” He glanced sidelong at Bellamus, who still had his back to the scene. “I’m not sure the men will like this.”
“My men have seen worse. They would never have disobeyed an order of mine. The new ones needed to learn.” Bellamus scuffed a line through the hay that covered the floor. “And they’re angry now; that will fade with time, but the lesson won’t.” He stared bitterly through the open door of the barn, still facing away from the men swinging at his back. Their coarse flailing had ceased, and been replaced by a rattling tremor. “What a bloody shame,” he murmured. “Let’s get out of here as soon as we can. I need to see the king.”
15The Giant Elk
Roper awoke cold in the narrow bed in his quarters. The rough woollen blankets had mostly slipped off him and he pulled them back about his shoulders, eliciting a groan from Keturah next to him. She shuffled irritably to release some blanket for him and draped an arm over his chest, burying her face in the horsehair pillow.
My head, thought Roper, screwing up his eyes and grimacing. He could not remember leaving the Honour Hall yesterday, nor much beyond Uvoren’s speech. There had been wrestling; that he remembered. He had an idea that Uvoren had won it, and that Pryce had been surly because he had lost his second bout.
He glanced at the window above his table a little too quickly and the room span. He shut his eyes and after a time, when the world seemed to have stabilised, opened them again. Snow was resting lightly against the panes of glass and more appeared to be drifting down past the window. No wonder he was cold. I must find a bigger bed, he thought absently to himself.
It was too cold for inactivity. He dragged himself out from beneath Keturah and stood to another wave of nausea. Gingerly, he pulled on a cotton tunic which he belted before extracting a heavy wolfskin cloak from an iron-clad chest and draping it about his shoulders. Opening the door to his quarters, he found one of the young women serving her time as a maid and requested wood, water and dried dandelion roots. These were brought, with the woman insisting on building the fire for him in the hearth at the back of the room, pulling across a small lever with a clunk to allow air to flow up through the grate and feed the flames. She set a blackened copper pot above it to heat the water before bowing herself out of the room. Roper waited for the water to come to the boil before tipping the dried, ground roots into the tumbling liquid and leaving it to brew.
While he waited, he stared out of the window. He could not see far as the air was thick with snowflakes but the roofs all around him were six inches deep in the crystals. The snow covered the leaded gutters, collected on the sills and leading of windows and rested gently on the slate tiles. The fire was roaring now and its warmth was beginning to permeate the room, along with the burnt-earth smell of the simmering roots.
Roper stood and poured some of the steaming brew into a birch cup, straining out the roots with a cotton gauze. He sipped it and sat back at his table, staring glassy-eyed out of the window. “Yes please,” mumbled Keturah into the pillow and Roper stood again to supply her with her own cup. She sat up, black hair hanging loose over her shoulders as she sipped the brew and wrinkled her nose. Roper stared at her, half in fascination, half through sheer vacancy.
“Who won the wrestling last night?” he asked at last.
“That berserker, Tarben,” she said. “It was him and Uvoren for the final bout. Uvoren nearly had him, but he was too strong.” Vague images flickered through Roper’s head of an individual so vast and hairy that it had assumed the form of a bear in his memory. Keturah’s eyes raked his face and she offered him a smile of such sweetness that he returned it entirely involuntarily. “So what will you do about him?” She meant Uvoren.
“I don’t know,” said Roper. “I can’t kill him. Not yet. It would split the country and his allies would declare war. And he has strong sons who would take up his mantle. Last night I thought to bring him close and offer peace, but I see now that he came too near to ruling this land to be happy with his old role. I think I shall have to finish him, one way or another.”
“Yes, you will. He’s certainly not going to have a quiet winter.”
“He’ll spend it plotting against me,” Roper agreed.
It was a holiday. There was always a holiday after a feast. They could do what they wished for the rest of the day.
Keturah glanced out of the window. “Poor devils,” she said, taking another sip of the brew.
“Who?”
“Half our country,” she said. “So many of the eastern subjects lost their homes and granaries to the Suthern invasion. You know better than I, you’ve seen it. But they must be facing a bleak winter.”
Roper paused. “You’re right. Those without homes and stores can’t possibly survive. We can’t just leave them.”
“We can,” said Keturah. “Your father would have. As would mine, if he ruled. The Black Lord is not supposed to bother himself with concerns like that. He is a warrior ruler.”
“And because I withdrew on the battlefield, they suffered. We should take them into the fortress.” Since the return of Roper’s army, the refugees had begun to herd in front of the Hindrunn walls once more.
“Do you think that wise?” asked Keturah.
