The Legend of Broken

“I did — and I shall tell you more of that in a moment,” Radelfer replies. “As well as of the miraculous changes she has brought about in the Fifth District, assisted by your son and by an old comrade of mine that you may remember — Linnet Kriksex.”

“Kriksex?” Arnem replies. “Yes, I recall both the name and the man — he was with us at the Atta Pass, among many other engagements, before he was grievously wounded.”

“Not so grievously that he has not protected your wife, in the company of other veterans, from the terrible change that has taken place—”

Radelfer stops speaking when he grows aware of a presence; and, turning, both men see a young face poking through the rear entrance of the tent: Ernakh’s.

“Excuse me, Sentek,” the youth says quietly, “but I was wondering if I might ask the seneschal a question?”

“One question only, Ernakh,” Arnem says, increasingly anxious to know what is happening to his wife and eldest son. “Then go and join the other children, and get something to eat.”

At this, Ernakh enters the tent fully, making sure to close its flaps tight behind him, and turns to look up at Radelfer. “It is only—” he says haltingly and fearfully; “My mother, sir — why did she not come out with the sentek’s children?”

Radelfer smiles, and puts a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “Lady Arnem urged your mother to leave, Ernakh,” he says. “But she would not abandon her mistress. Yet there was probably greater danger in the journey than in staying behind, so you may put your young mind at ease.”

Ernakh smiles with relief, then nods once as he says, “Thank you, sir.” Turning to Arnem, he repeats, “And thank you, Sentek — I only wanted to be certain.” The skutaar then runs out into the council room, where he renews his friendships with the Arnem children.

The sentek turns to Radelfer. “What is the truth of the matter, Seneschal? Would my children have been safer in the city, and was my lady merely being exceedingly cautious by sending them out?”

Radelfer sighs, then takes the cup of wine and the seat that Arnem — who also sits and drinks a little, out of uneasiness, if nothing else — offers him. “I wish I could say that I had been entirely truthful, Sentek,” Radelfer begins. “In fact, the situation in the city has grown vastly more dangerous — especially for Lady Arnem because of my master’s past feelings for her, which seem to have returned, if indeed they ever truly departed.” The seneschal pauses, staring into his wine. “Although I suppose I must refer to the Merchant Lord as my former master, now — and I am not at all certain that such is a bad thing … But the peril to your lady, as well as your district? That, I fear, is truly heightened, which is why I have come. Never, in what has been his troubled life, have I seen Rendulic Baster-kin so full of anger, so possessed by schemes that have driven him wild with passionate desire and a murderous determination.”

Arnem feels the steady pain of dread growing in his heart. “You say the situation in Broken has changed, Radelfer,” he replies. “Is that why I have received no written word from my wife, of late, when previously she had been writing so regularly?”

“Aye, Sentek,” Radelfer says. “Lord Baster-kin has closed all avenues of communication between the Fifth District and the rest of the city, as well as the rest of the kingdom. No food enters, and few citizens escape. I only passed into the area and then back out, because of the Guard’s knowledge that I am the seneschal of the Merchant Lord’s household: I could therefore hide your children in the wagon I took from our stables.”

“The Guard?” Arnem echoes. “But my wife’s last dispatch, as well as my own children, reported that Sentek Gerfrehd and the regular army were atop the walls.”

“As they were,” Radelfer answers with a nod. “But, just before our departure, his lordship was able to convince the God-King, through the Grand Layzin, to order the regular army to confine itself to its own Fourth District, because they would not participate in the planned destruction of the Fifth. The second and last khotor of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard now man the walls above that unfortunate district on all sides, and are preparing, after they have starved its inhabitants, to burn it to the ground. Therefore, if you now plan to march back to Broken, as I suspect you do, you cannot expect to be welcomed. For his lordship has also convinced the God-King — again through the Grand Layzin — to declare both the Talons and the residents of the Fifth to be in league with the Bane.”

Arnem’s face fills with an expression of both crushing betrayal confirmed and even more terrible fears realized: for what Radelfer has told him is no more than the logical continuation of the conclusions he has already been forced to reach, at Visimar’s insistence, concerning Lord Baster-kin’s intentions regarding the kingdom’s most elite troops; yet he had not thought that such a charge, in all its deadly absurdity, would ever be extended to his wife and eldest son, to say nothing of the people of his native district.

“In league with the Bane …,” the sentek repeats, in no more than a dreadful whisper. He stands and begins to pace, running a hand through his hair roughly, as if he will drag comprehension from within his skull. But after several moments of silent bewilderment, as well as being alerted to the full extent of the danger by the laughter of his children and Ernakh from behind the thick, rich hides that compose the partition inside his tent, he can conclude no more than, “Madness … He cannot be in his right mind, Radelfer!”

The seneschal shrugs, having already had at least some time to adapt to the terrible turn that Rendulic Baster-kin’s mind has taken. “On the contrary, Sentek — I have known his lordship since he was but a boy, and I have rarely seen him speaking and behaving so seemingly lucidly.” Pausing, Radelfer drinks deep from his goblet, and looks up at Arnem. “I doubt very much that you have heard he not only witnessed but presided over the death of his own son.”

Arnem spins on the seneschal in horror. “Adelwulf? He allowed him to die?”

“He arranged it,” Radelfer replies; and there is a sadness beneath the even tone of his words that he is very obviously working hard to suppress. “In the Stadium. As good as served the lad up to one of the wild beasts, there — he explained that he wished to frighten the wealthy young men who frequent that place into serving with the khotor of the Guard that has just marched on the Wood.”

“And been destroyed to the last man by their arrogance and utter lack of professional understanding,” Arnem says, in an angry reply.

Radelfer takes in this information with the same labored steadiness that has marked the whole of his conversation with Sixt Arnem. “Have they?” he murmurs. “Well … then his lordship might have spared the boy so horrifying a fate, and let him die fighting our enemies.”

“If indeed they are our enemies,” Arnem says quickly. Radelfer’s features become confused, but before he can ask the sentek’s meaning, Arnem has set his fists heavily on the table before Radelfer and — in a voice measured enough that his children will not hear, but no less passionate — demands, “But why let his own son, his heir, die in the first place, much less arrange for it to happen?”

Very carefully, Radelfer stares into his goblet, and states with thinly veiled meaning, “He intends to have a second family. With a woman who, unlike his wretched, dying wife, is someone of strength, someone he has long admired — a woman who will, he believes, give him sons that will be true, loyal, and healthy servants of the kingdom.” Pausing to take a quaff of wine, Radelfer finally says, “Just as she has given you such children, Sentek …”

Once again, Sixt Arnem is momentarily stunned by how much more elaborate Lord Baster-kin’s plotting has run than he or even Visimar suspected. “My wife?” he eventually whispers. “He intends to steal my wife?”

“It is not theft,” Radelfer replies, still with remarkable control of his emotions, “if the former husband is dead. And your lordship has been daily expecting confirmation that both you and your men have died from the pestilence that is ravaging the provinces.” Staring into the distance, the seneschal reflects: “But instead, you are all still here, and the First Khotor of the Guard, along with the sons of most of the prominent houses in Broken, lie dead in the Wood …”

“And what of my children, Radelfer?” Arnem demands. “What was to become of them?”

Turning his head to the rough wool beneath his feet, Radelfer muses, with his first real display of remorse, “Your children would simply have been declared unfortunate casualties of the destruction of the Fifth District. Your insistence on remaining in that part of the city, even when you have attained command of the army, has always caused widespread consternation among the royal family, the priesthood, and the merchant classes in the city. The deaths of your children would have been laid to your own inscrutable stubbornness, rather than at the door of his lordship …”

Arnem is silent for a few moments, scarcely able to believe what he has heard. “But—why?