Ranald shrugged, but he couldn’t stop looking into her eyes. ‘Lady, I could say I’m no knight, but a drover. And I could say I’m a hillman, and not in any way your subject.’ He grinned, and knelt. ‘But he’d be a rude bastard and no kind of a man, who ever failed to acknowledge you as his Queen.’
She clapped her hands delightedly. ‘You are the very spirit of the north, Ser Ranald. One mark per beeve.’
‘You, my lady, are the living embodiment of beauty, but for a mark a head, I could have sold them to the Keeper of Dorling. Two silver marks a head.’ His eyes flicked to something behind her, and his smile intensified.
‘You remember my secretary, the very learned Lady Almspend?’ she asked. ‘One and a half.’
‘One and a half, right here, on this side of the river?’ he asked. He made another deep bow, this time to her secretary, who was standing on the gunwale, beaming. ‘Two if I have to drive them over the river.’
‘What’s a kiss worth,’ sang Lady Almspend. She blushed, shocked at her own boldness.
‘Everything!’ he shouted back. ‘But these aren’t my beeves, so I can’t trade them for a kiss, my sweet,’ He relented. ‘Your Grace, my price is two, but I’ll drive them where you like, and pledge my lads to serve your Grace.’
The Queen nodded. ‘Sold. Fetch me my navarch. I have a thousand head of cattle to ferry over the river.’ She turned back to the hillman. ‘So despite your sordid money, you’ll do a deed of arms with me?’
She put extra effort into her voice. She saw a coldness in him – something absent, some terror recently passed – and her voice caressed it like liquid gold.
The hillman looked cautious. ‘What kind of deed?’
‘What knight asks what deed is required of him? Really, Ser Ranald,’ she said, and put her arm through his.
‘I’m no knight,’ he said. ‘Except perhaps in my heart,’ he added.
She smiled at Lady Almspend. ‘We must do something to rectify that.’
On the bank above them Donald Redmane watched his cousin with the Queen.
‘What’s happening?’ asked one of the boys.
‘We just sold the herd to the Queen,’ Donald said. ‘What’s an Alban mark worth?’ he asked, and then shrugged. ‘And now we have to live to spend it.’
Lissen Carak – Harmodius
Harmodius listened to the angry crowd and kept his head down. He was almost drained of power – needed more recovery time, and the last thing he needed was a confrontation with ignorant witch-hunters.
Let the boy handle all that.
He dressed carefully. The old Abbess had never been a friend of his – but now, in death, he had to admire her. She had disclosed power of a level she had never had in youth – and had deployed her power brilliantly. She’d held the Enemy for long moments, while he prepared his masterstroke.
Sadly, his masterstroke hadn’t quite come off. But she hadn’t died in vain. The fortress still stood. And the Enemy’s beard had been badly singed.
Again.
Harmodius imagined himself standing at the Podium at Harnford, staff in hand, lecturing on Hermeticism.
And now all of her secrets would go to her grave with her, and her soul would fly to her maker.
Harmodius ran his fingers through his beard.
What if-
That’s what it was, wasn’t it? It was, in a way, a commonplace.
Green or gold, white or red? Power. It’s just
No good. No evil. No Satan. No – no God?
Did it mean that, in fact? Were there really any fewer angels on the head of a pin, if all power came from a single source?
His head spun.
What if Aristotle was wrong?
He could hardly breathe. One thing to think it. Another to know it to be true.
He stumbled down the tight staircase to the common room of the dormitory, and then he forced one foot in front of the other as he walked toward the chapel.
Bad Tom appeared at the captain’s side. The captain was doing his damnedest to appear to be a member of the congregation. He had just sung a hymn. He had himself well in order.
She had wanted him to understand.
He knelt when the other attendees knelt. Sister Miram led the service in the absence of the priest, a matter that seemed to excite no comment.
‘My lord?’ asked Tom, at his elbow.
‘Not now.’
‘Now, my lord,’ Tom said.
Glaring at his corporal, the captain stood, walked to the aisle and genuflected to the crucified figure that towered over him, and then backed down the aisle to the doors. Every head turned.
Too bad.
‘What?’ he barked, when he was outside. The nuns were singing her to rest – every voice it the woven fabric of music a thread of power. It was incredibly beautiful.
Tom looked at the door to the cellars. ‘I hae’ the priest, God rot his false soul to hell. I put him I’ the darkest room wi’ a lock.’ Anger made his voice thick.
The captain nodded. ‘You valued her too.’
Tom shrugged. ‘She blessed me.’ He looked away. ‘That priest, he’s going to die hard.’
The captain nodded. ‘We’ll try him for treason, first,’ he said.
Tom had his back to the door. ‘Why try him? You’re the captain of a fortress under siege. Law of War.’
Lissen Carak – Gerald Random
Gerald Random picked his way fastidiously along the captain’s trench, following Ser Milus – clambering over the cooked bodies of a hundred boglins, their charred remnants a testimony to the power of fire. They smelled like cooked meat, and when he lost his balance and stepped on one, it crunched as if he’d stepped on charcoal. He paused.
His skin prickled.
Gelfred the huntsman strode past him, eyes wary, moving faster. The mercenary didn’t seem to mind stepping on the cremated boglins.
Random wondered how long he’d have to do this before he was like Gelfred, or Milus.
Behind him, forty men moved carefully along the trench – company archers, new recruits, farm boys. The reinforcements.
They came out of the trench under the wall of the Bridge Castle and hollered to the watch to open the postern. Random had answered the call from the fortress before mains, and he wasn’t in armour. He grabbed a bite of bread and a sound apple, and one of the young whores who’d come with the convoy handed him some good cheese. He smiled. ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’ he asked. Dora. She was Dora Candlesomething. Young Nick Draper fancied her, and Allan Pargeter had drawn her naked, which was still a nine-day wonder among the wagons, despite the flying monsters and magic. That made Random laugh.
She smiled back at him. ‘Money,’ she said. ‘Same as you.’
