The War, page 5
They stood in silence, looking over the manifold hues. Shortly they were joined by the owner of the merchandise, who took quick note of their interest and plied his wares on them with skill. But Laufeia, much as she would have liked to, felt that she could not in good conscience purchase something so needless for herself without Mordred’s approval. Fiona must have thought the same; neither of them yielded to the man’s persuasions, but walked away at last and wandered down by the lakeshore.
~
The sun of high noon was beating down, turning the lake’s surface into a blazing glory. They took the food that Isabelle had prepared and sat down to eat beside the flicking waves. Daren’s purchase, a shaggy roan cow with beautiful, limpid dark eyes, stood picketed beside them and nosed out the new blades among last year’s dead grass.
Fred sat with his hands clasped over his knee, feeling the brisk wind coming in over the water. His gaze traveled from the white huffs of cloud to the cool sapphire lake, the mist of leafing trees around it and the grazing cow nearby.
Never had he felt such contentment. Never had the world seemed so full of promise, so glad and fair. And when he heard the step behind him and turned to see his lady with the sun on her hair and light in her eyes, it was fairer still.
He stood and took her hands gently. The steady radiance in her face set a quick yearning in his heart. “My love,” he whispered.
They were silent a moment, while the sunlight shone down.
“I asked you if you would marry me when the trees of spring budded, my lady Fiona. Will you be my wife tomorrow?”
Her hands were warm in his. She met his gaze steadily. “I will be your wife.”
“That is well,” he said, and drew her into his arms. “This is not the time for waiting any longer.”
She rested her head lightly on his chest, and moved with the passion that did not come quickly to him he kissed her hair, then her brow, and held her close.
~
“How much there is to do at the horse sale!” sighed Linda Boccin, lying flat on the prickling grass and staring up at the hazy color of the late afternoon sky. “Why, we have ogled cloth and dyes and pottery and trinkets, and eaten lunch, and splashed one another in the lake—”
“I did not ask for that,” Lia Earle cut in, shivering dramatically. “Linda, that water was freezing!”
“—found a toad in the reeds—”
“So disgusting!” Lia cried.
“—bought chickens, chased them over the whole village green, caught them again, watched our fathers haggle to no end over livestock and livestock and more livestock . . . ”
She paused and looked at the third figure of their group, who was lying with her cheek propped on one hand and her green eyes staring dreamily into space. “Marianne!”
No answer was forthcoming. Linda pulled up a handful of grass and threw it at Marianne’s prone figure.
Marianne Denholm tossed the sprigs back at Linda. “What are you after?”
“Naught.” Linda giggled. “Just wanting your attention. That is harder to get these days than a splinter out of a horse’s hock.”
“Oh . . . ” Marianne looked off dreamily again, and transferred her attention to Linda. “I suppose I was thinking of something else. You see . . . Linda . . . I shall be having a baby.”
“Oh!” Linda gasped, suitably astonished and ecstatic. “Marianne, that’s wonderful! When?” Her gaze traveled hopefully to Marianne’s unremarkable waist.
Marianne giggled in her turn. “Some time yet, Linda! October or November, I think. I told Kenneth this morning.”
“What is going on here?” asked a curious but hesitant voice, interrupting their laughter and babble. They looked up, surprised, to see Laufeia Kenhelm with her long braid swinging over one shoulder and her clear-cut features highlighted in the afternoon sun.
“Marianne’s going to have a baby,” answered Lia brightly, and at Laufeia’s appreciative—“Oh!”—they were suddenly all part of a tight-knit circle that enfolded and laughed, and was much bigger than the quick, happy embrace they shared together.
~
Setting rays of sun were shooting out over the reddened lake waters, and a warmly bluish twilight gathered in the east as the last few tradesmen packed away their goods and herded their animals down the beaten road, leaving the villagers to linger behind and savor the last moments of a full day.
“So this was a horse sale,” said Laufeia, combing her fingers through the tangled dark mane of the fiery little stallion that Mordred had named Smoke; and those tired words summed up all the mad whirl of events in one.
“It was a good day,” said Mordred surprisingly, his face lit by the dying red sun and his eyes looking clear and unafraid. He rested one arm on Smoke’s neck and lightly caressed his muzzle, and his other hand found Laufeia’s and closed over it.
There was a dark thing winging past the sun, a heavy beating overhead like giant bats. Mordred let Laufeia’s hand slip away and leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in confusion as the thing alighted and the dispersing people came curiously back.
The dragon shook its head, seeming to set itself proudly above the lesser beasts around it, and the general dismounted from its back. His shoulders were bent, as one carrying a great weight. As one after another recognized him, exclamations of surprise murmured among them. But he lifted his hand, commanding their silence, and stood looking upon them with love, love great and tender, as though he would encompass the whole of Orden in that gaze.
“My people,” he said and was silent a moment. He drew a breath; his gaze moved over them again, slowly, marking out individual faces in the small, waiting crowd. “We are under attack.”
~
Mordred felt the coldness of the words settle over him, while the heat of alarm pounded in his bones. He saw in searing flashes death, and blood, and burning, swords and spears, while the lake water lapped quietly on the shore and he was acutely aware of all the still evening about him.
In the next instant another thought veered his mind aside, and he thought that surely he had been too swift. He repeated the general’s words to himself, tore them apart one by one.
We are under attack—under attack—
Who were we? Where was the attack, and from whom? He must have been too hasty, his assumption unfounded. Could not his instinct be mistaken? Surely the flash of seeing had been a lie?
What do you mean? he thought silently. Speak plainer. Tell me I have erred.
All this happened in the space of a few fleeting seconds, which seemed an age of agony. The general’s voice fell like a tolling bell upon the lake’s shore.
“Encamped before the West Gate this very night lies an army greater than has ever faced Orden’s borders at one time. To you this is a sudden word, to your king and leaders scarcely less so, and yet already they have loosed their first arrows on our watchtowers; the conflict is begun. This is war, a dark and evil war.”
Dark—dark—the word whispered like a chant of hopelessness. A cold stillness reigned, and then the general’s voice rang out again, sharp and clear like a hammer onto the anvil, though filled with sorrow.
“Know that we are not yet without strength. They have found our borders guarded and prepared, and yestereve we welcomed our sister-country’s warriors within our gates. Yet outnumbered we remain, yea, outnumbered to odds that make a hardened soldier quail. My people, I do not wish to ask this of you. No man should wish it. You do not know war; you may have never touched a sword. Spring is upon you, the time of ploughing and planting, and your family is dear to you.
“But you will know war—whether at one end of a weapon or the other—and if you love these fields you have not yet ploughed, and if you would keep that family, I do ask it of you. As of now, we have signed no enlistment edict. I pray we will not need to. But men of Orden, should you come to take up arms, we will not turn you away. The army is small, and the threat is very great, and tonight, hope is very small.
“You who come, present yourselves at Mitheren swiftly tomorrow. Now is not the time for slackness.”
The last echo of his words fell on the dead air. The general turned and mounted his dragon, and the heavy wingbeats sounded in their ears, and faded.
~
The awful quiet broke, like a thin pane of protection shattering. The muted buzzing of tense whispers was all around, sounds of feet hustling down the road. Linda Boccin was crying.
Laufeia could not cry. She was too dazed, too afraid.
Mordred stood beside her, his frame tall and rigid, his face pale in the dusk and very set. He seemed not to know anything around him, not even himself, and when Laufeia spoke his name he did not answer.
“Laufeia Kenhelm.” It was Kenneth Denholm, hastening up to them. “Have you seen the Thornes?”
She shook her head, incapable of forming words yet.
“They must have left earlier,” he muttered. “The Segelases, too. Someone will have to tell them. Braegon!” he called, moving away.
Laufeia turned back to Mordred and took his hand that was closed about Smoke’s bridle, prying his fingers slowly loose. He started slightly and shook her away, glancing down from her to Fenris.
“Mordred?” she asked.
He picked up the bridle again and turned, leading the way down the road toward home.
~
“Is it such a ceremony to milk the cow for the first time?” asked Daren with a wry grin, looking up at the crowd of five surrounding him. Lantern-light made a golden circle in the darkness of the old, musty barn.
“I have never seen a cow milked,” pronounced Gwenda gravely. “Of course it is a ceremony for me.”
Fred laughed. “Go on, Daren. You will acquit yourself well, I do not doubt.”
“My prowess is not as great as I fear you believe it to be,” returned Daren with a sigh, feeling for the teats. With a careful rolling motion he sent a squirt of milk flying against the side of the wooden bucket, and the cow with a startled movement jerked away from his hand and sent the bucket tipping over.
“I see we will all have much to learn about this,” said Daren ruefully.
“Madam Cow included,” added Sandy, and grinned as they laughed.
Daren bent to retrieve the bucket, but as he straightened he cocked his head with a frown to the door. “Someone coming?”
Fred listened and nodded. “It sounds like hooves,” he said and stepped out as the horse came cantering up to the cottage door. “Kenneth!” he called, recognizing the rider. “What is it?”
Kenneth Denholm took a husky breath and met his eyes. “War.”
~
War.
The dreadful tidings swept through Ceristen, while time continued in its relentless path and the night wore on.
~
Peony had not expected the sudden storm of shaken tears that overtook Fiona. Fiona, so quiet-tempered, so composed—but not now. Peony held her like a child, and Fiona wept herself out in her arms, while over her head Peony watched Bardrick and Marcus talk in low voices.
“ . . . down to Mitheren . . . tomorrow morning . . . so few soldiers . . . ”
It was men’s talk, she thought quietly. They were moving in another world, now, her brothers, a world cut out of spears and long, long waiting. A world from which they might not return—and all at once Peony understood Fiona’s tears. She swallowed back her own and held her younger sister firmly.
~
“They may not need so many, Arad.” Mrs. Earle’s plump, inquisitive face showed distress and worry. “Please do not go, not yet, not unless you are certain you must.”
“I will not yet, my love,” he said. “But what of Jared?”
She bit down on her trembling lip. “Jared is a man. He may choose himself. If he wishes it . . . I will not forbid him to go.”
~
“But they have an army.” Filian’s voice rose, and his dark eyes met his older brother’s accusingly. “Why do you have to go? You might be killed.”
“Little brother,” said Braegon, “I was in an army once. It is for that reason I must go. They have an army, Filian, but it is too small. They will need soldiers, and they will need the ones who can fight. I must go, Filian. You will be the man in my stead.”
~
Mordred stood by the house under the moon, head bent and gaze far away. He twisted a dead twig off the laurel growing by the wall absently but did not let it go; he rolled it between his fingers again and again, as though seeking the ribbed bark that had sloughed off its stem long ago. At last he let it slip, almost noiselessly, to the ground below.
The rustling of Fenris’ approach over the weak new grass made him look up. The younger brother halted as Mordred saw him.
“Aye, Fenris?” Mordred asked gently.
Fenris gave a soft, uncertain shrug in answer and walked to stand beside him.
Mordred lowered his eyes and touched an opening spray of the laurel bush, staring at its slim delicacy under his hands. Another dry twig snapped off and tumbled to the grass. “So sudden,” he murmured. “So cruel—one moment we have a farm, a horse, the promise of a life—the next it means nothing.” He laughed shortly. “For what? For the whims of kings.”
“Will we go down tomorrow?”
Mordred looked at his brother, at the question. “Aye,” he answered. “Aye, of course we will go. How can we not? You heard the plea in the general’s words. It is fight or perish.” His face lit; the tightness dropped away for a moment. “But who would not fight—for such a man?”
“Mordred . . . ” Fenris’ voice faltered. “Please stay safe.”
Wind whispered softly in the trees. Moonlight glimmered on two young men, the clear grey eyes of the elder saddened by the suffering he could not spare his brother, the younger’s dark and fearful of the end. “Fenris, I would promise you anything. How can I promise what I do not know?”
“Mordred.” There was desperation in the plea.
“Oh, Fenris.” Mordred laid a hand upon his brother’s shoulder. “It cannot be that bad. We shall care for one another, you and I. We shall keep one another safe and survive many a foolish soldier who thinks to cross our paths.”
At his light, almost teasing words, a smile came hesitantly to Fenris’ face.
CHAPTER 6
EARLY ON THE MORNING OF April nineteenth, before hardly a soul in Orden was awake, a lone figure knocked at the gate of Mitheren and demanded to see the general. The sleepy guard eyed him doubtfully, refusing to unbar the gate, until the stranger leaned forward and whispered something into his ear.
The guard jumped and took a second look at the man standing before him. Fumbling in his haste, he loosed the chains. The gate creaked open, and the man slipped, catlike, through the gloomy shadows of the courtyard and into the Tower of Kings.
~
The general had not slept. Letters sealed and incomplete, ink-bottles, and scraps of candle-wick littered the table before him. His head rested in his hands.
The door creaked softly on the admittance of another, who took a single, respectful step into the room and halted, eyes dark with apprehension. “Someone to see you, my general.”
The general’s shoulders straightened, his head lifting in acknowledgment of Captain Rhodes’ word, but he did not turn.
“Shall I tell him to wait, General?”
The general stood, facing the captain with a shake of the head. “Let him come in.”
In another span of minutes, the door reopened to admit a tall figure, cloaked, features shielded under the hood. He came forward quickly with a lithe, panther-like grace, and the general took a step back, hand straying to his sword-hilt.
“There is no need for that,” said the man, sounding a trifle annoyed. “If I were going to murder you, which I’m not, you would never be able to best me anyway. Let alone kill me.” He shook back the concealing hood, and the first rays of daylight fell upon his face.
It was a face which every man of Mitheren knew.
The general gasped, dropping his hand from his sword. “Jedediah Crayes!” he exclaimed.
“Precisely,” Jedediah Crayes retorted. “I suppose you thought I was going to miss out on this.”
The visage was striking rather than handsome that addressed the general so irreverently: lean, strong-jawed, narrow-eyed, and a jutting, almost hooked nose reminiscent of a bird of prey. Despite a weathered appearance, he presented few lines of age, and his wiry hair was dark as a crow’s wing; men incorrectly put him nearer forty than fifty. He was, in fact, forty-six.
“Well, if you’ve no better greeting for me than a horrified exclamation,” Jedediah Crayes resumed in his disdainful, almost derisive tones, “I suppose we must get on to business. I daresay you would love to know how I got here so soon, and how I know everything about this war that’s going on, and more than that, why I’m here at all. Unfortunately, I’m not going to answer the first two. In respect to the latter, as a senior member of the Legean Association, I’m here to assist the authorities in the usual—or unusual—manner. You have my services and my fealty for the duration of this war, though naturally there is to be understanding that this state of affairs is only for the duration of the war, and does not bind me in any lasting way to Orden and her concerns.”
“We are grateful for the aid of the Legean Association,” the general answered, inclining his head in an acknowledgment. “And you are welcome, Jedediah Crayes, to give your services wholly and in whatever regard you choose.”
“Excellent, excellent,” Jedediah Crayes purred. “Most wise of you. If you had not accepted—well, then I would have assisted in spite of you and that would have been positively irritating for all concerned.”
He strode casually across the room to the window, and peered out it at the quiet courtyard. “What? No streams of devoted youngsters flocking to your gates yet, ready to lay down their lives for their beloved general? No councils organized? No-one blaring the trumpets and calling the soldiers to arms? You’re all practically asleep, aren’t you. A wonder the Runnicoran general isn’t sitting on Mitheren’s throne already.”
