“A fine piece of horseflesh.” Makin nodded and spat from dusty lips. “Have the King’s stable-master train you another. I’m sure there’s not a paddock in Ancrath without it has at least one of Gerrod’s bastards.”
“He was a lustful one, I’ll give you that.” I hawked and spat. My armour chafed, and the metal held the heat of the late afternoon sun, sweat trickling underneath.
“It doesn’t feel right though,” Makin said. “The most convincing victory in memory and all we have to show for it is a lack of horses.”
“I’ve had more loot from a peasant hut!” Rike called out from back down the line.
“Christ bleeding! Don’t start Little Rikey off,” I said. “We’re rich in the coin that counts the most, my brothers. We return laden in victory.” There indeed was a currency I could spend at court. Everything is for sale at the right price. A king’s favour, a succession, even a father’s respect.
And that’s another thing that made those returning miles longer than the going ones. Not only did I have to carry myself, my armour, my rations, but I had a new burden. It’s hard to carry a weight of news with none to tell and days ahead before you can release it. Good news weighs just as heavy as bad. I could imagine myself back at court, boasting of my victory, rubbing noses in it, a certain stepmother’s nose in particular. What would not paint itself on the canvas of my imagination was my father’s reaction. I tried to see him shake his head in disbelief. I tried to see him smile and stand and put his hand on my shoulder. I tried to hear him thank me, praise me, call me son. But my eyes went blind and the words I heard were too faint and deep for distinction.
The brothers had little to say on the return journey, feeling the holes left in our ranks, haunted by the space where the Nuban should be. Gog on the other hand bubbled over with energy, running ahead, chasing rabbits, asking question after question.
“Why is the roof blue, Brother Jorg?” he asked. He seemed to think the outside world was just a bigger cave. Some philosophers agree with him.
There were other changes too. The red marks on Gog’s hide had shaded to a fiercer red, and the nightly campfires fascinated him. He would stare into the flames, entranced, edging closer moment by moment. Gorgoth discouraged the interest, flicking the child into the shadows, as if the attraction worried him.
The roads became more familiar, the inclines gentle, the fields rich. I walked the paths of my childhood, a golden time, easy days without care, scored by my mother’s music and her song, with no sour note until my sixth year. My father had taught me the first of the hard lessons then, lessons in pain and loss and sacrifice. Gelleth had been the sum of that teaching. Victory without compromise, without mercy or hesitation. I would thank King Olidan for his instruction and tell him how his enemies had fared at my hands. And he would approve.
I thought of Katherine too, as we drew nearer. My idle moments filled with her image, with the moments I had spent close enough to touch her. I saw again how the light caught her, how it found the bones of her face, the softness of her lips.
We came footsore and road-weary to the heartlands of Ancrath, too deep in our own thoughts even to steal the horses that would ease the last of our journey. I had but to close my eyes and I would see the new sun rise over Gelleth, rise through Gelleth, and hear the screams of her ghosts.
We saw the Tall Castle’s battlements from the Osten Ridge, with seven miles still before us to the gates. The sun descended in the west, crimson, racing us to the city.
“We’ll be heroeth, Jorth?” Elban asked. He sounded uncertain as if all his years had yet to teach him that the end justifies the means.
“Heroes?” I shrugged. “We will be victors. And that’s what counts.”
We walked the last mile in dusk. The guards at the gates of the Low City had no questions for me. Perhaps they recognized their prince, or perhaps they read my look and some instinct for self preservation kicked in. We walked through unopposed.
“Brother Kent, why don’t you lead the way to the Low Town and find the lads somewhere to drink? The Falling Angel, maybe.” Sir Makin and I would go to court. The remainder of my brothers would find no welcome in the Tall Castle.
With Makin at my side I set off for the High City and at last we came to the castle itself. I put fatigue aside when we entered by the Triple Gate. We crossed the Lectern Courtyard in the deepest shadows, thrown by a failing sun.
By the time we passed the table knights at Father’s doors I had a spring in my step. I looked first for Sageous, seeking him at the King’s side, then amongst the glitter of the crowd. I let the herald finish our introduction, and still I sought the heathen. I found Katherine beside the Queen, one hand on her sister’s shoulder, hard eyes for poor Jorg. I let the silence stretch a moment longer.
“Where have you hidden your painted savage, Father-dear? I did so want to meet the old poisoner of dreams again.”
I slid my gaze across the sea of faces one more time.
“Sageous’s services to the Crown have taken him from our borders.” Father held his face impassive, but I saw the quick glance exchanged between his queen and her sister.
“I’ll be sure to look for his return.” So, the heathen had run before me…
“I’m told that you limped back without the Forest Watch.” Queen Sareth spoke from Father’s side, her hands upon the greatness of her belly. “Are we to assume your losses were total?” A smile escaped the tight line of her mouth. An exceptionally pretty mouth, it has to be noted.
I spared her a small bow. A bow for my half-brother, struggling to claw his way from her womb. “Lady, there were losses among the Forest Watch, I cannot deny it.”
Father inclined his head, as if the crown weighed heavy upon him. Pale eyes watched me from the shadow of his brow. “We will have an account of this rout.”
“Lord Vincent de Gren…” I counted him off on my index finger.
An intake of breath hissed through the aristocracy.
“Even the Watch Master!” Queen Sareth struggled to her feet. “He has even lost the Watch Master! And this boy seeks our throne?”
“Lord Vincent de Gren,” I resumed my count. “I had to push him over the Temus Falls. He vexed me. Coddin is the Watch Master now, low born but a sound fellow.”
“Jed Willox.” I counted a second finger. “Killed in a knife fight over a game of cards, two days’ march past the Gelleth border.”
“Mattus of Lee.” I counted a third finger. “Apparently he urinated on a bear by mistake. It seems that the legendary woodcraft of the Forest Watch may be somewhat overstated. And… that’s it.”
I held the three fingers at arm’s length above my head and turned left, then right, to survey my audience.
“The losses among my own picked men were similarly grievous, but in our defence you must consider that the razing of a castle defended by nine hundred Gellethian veterans is a dangerous undertaking. With two hundred and fifty lightly-armed forest rangers, there is a limit to what can be achieved without casualties.”
“The coward never reached Castle Red!” The Queen pointed at me-as if anyone would mistake her target- and her voice became a shriek.
I smiled and held my peace. Women are apt to lose perspective when fat with child. I saw Katherine try to press Sareth back into her throne.
“I ordered you to assault the Castle Red.” Father’s words held no hint of anger, and carried all the more threat for it.
“Indeed.” I advanced on the throne, leaving Sir Makin in my wake. “Bring me Gelleth, you said.”
A yard separated us, no more, before the first palace guard thought to raise his crossbow. Father lifted a finger, and we paused, me and the guard sweating in his hauberk.
“Bring me Gelleth, you said. And you were good enough to grant me the Forest Watch to do it with.”
I reached into the road-sack at my hip, ignoring the crossbows held on me, and the fingers ever tighter on their triggers.
“Here is Merl Gellethar, Lord of Gelleth, master of the Castle Red.” I opened my hand and dust trickled through my fingers. “And here,” I drew out a chunk of rock no bigger than a walnut. “Here is the largest stone that remains of the Castle Red.”
I let the stone fall, dropped into silence. Neither dust nor stone were what I purported, of course, but the truth lay there on the throne-room floor. Merl Gellethar was dust on the wind, and his castle rubble.
