In the Eye of Heaven Part 46

Durand's reeling path had struck a metaled road that looked like the one for the South.

"They'll have taken the Eldinor road, yes?" he called back.

"Lamoric? Aye." The rain lashed down fit to shove him down. "h.e.l.ls, Durand. What are you thinking of?"

He looked up and down the road. With the rain battering the muck, there was no sign of which way they'd gone or how far. Lamoric could still be lurking around Tern Gyre or he could be halfway to the inland duchies. Durand covered his face for a heartbeat, then chose south. If he were Lamoric, he would be riding hard to put Tern Gyre behind him.

With time pa.s.sing unknowably in the gray Heavens, the road finally broke the line of a natural bank, dropping through a gap down a four-fathom ridge. Durand was soaked and shaking with it. He couldn't still his hands; even locking them tight in the waterlogged reins did no good. He fought to keep his head from sagging.

"What in the h.e.l.ls are you you doing here?" demanded a voice. doing here?" demanded a voice.

In the middle of the road stood Badan, having appeared like some nursery-story troll. His bald head gleamed with the red fringe round the back of his skull dripping as if someone had scalped him. A chained flail dangled from his fist. "I asked what you're doing here, and I expect an answer," he snarled. The chain rattled.

Durand stared down on Badan. Under the ridgeline, curious faces huddled as men and boys crowded under tarpaulins to take shelter from the rain. He saw Guthred with his hands loose at his sides. Ouen's face was frozen.

Coensar climbed out of his makeshift shelter.

"Durand, you are pa.s.sing through on your way south?" the captain offered-suggested.

"No," said Durand. His tongue was stiff in his mouth, and his heart beat in his throat. "I've come to speak with His Lordship."

Water streamed off the captain. "Durand," he explained. 'There's no talking left."

But Lamoric was already on his feet, stalking into the track. Coensar stopped him, too late.

"You must go back," Durand said. His clenched teeth chattered.

Lamoric's eyes flashed. For an instant, his head was rising out his cloak like a turtle from its sh.e.l.l.

"You must go back," Durand said, his jaws tight. "You've got to go back."

Lamoric stared a moment, then looked past him. "Skald, has he gone mad? Was he not there this morning?"

Heremund, crouched on the back of the big bay like a child, simply shook his head.

"Durandsaid Lamoric, "you woke the prince himself. He came out to bid us a good b.l.o.o.d.y morning. It was only by G.o.d's grace that he did not hang you. And you're cursed lucky some of these men didn't cut your throat."

"You've got to go back," Durand managed.Lamoric stared, then shook his head.

'It's over now. It's done." He spread his arms at the line of huddled men. "You only found us together like this, because there's but one road off the headland. There's no Red Knight anymore. There's no one to go back." He blinked like a twitch. "His retinue is disbanded. He has no companions. You must wake up. I tell you, because you did me service. It was finished the moment you sent that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Waer off that cliff."

Some of the others had stood up now, ranging around their onetime lord. If he could, Durand would have run. He ducked his head, pawing his face with stiff fingers.

"Radomor's coming," he said. "He's coming for Moryn." He couldn't get a good breath. "He's coming to swing the Council. It'll be war if we don't stop it."

"Radomor?"

"They've been at him. I saw the Rooks. I heard Ca.s.sonel bring word from ..." Names swam. "From the Duke of Beoran. They wanted him."

"This is madness," said Lamoric. He looked to Coensar, and Durand, too, checked the pale man's eyes. He saw no sneering there. "Radomor, he's my brother-in-law."

"I was there," said Durand.

"He wouldn't do it. All this madness with his father. He's an honorable man. He's led men for the king. Just this summer." He looked for support. "The man took a wound in the Marches."

"He was so angry," Durand said. His face was hot.

"He stood up for her, Durand. Poor Alwen. He shut that man Sitric Gowl up when he called her snipe."

"He's not the same man, Lordship. I know it I was there. Pure fury. He drowned the man who'd done it. Drowned him where everyone could hear, just sitting there. His friend. And he shut your sister up in the tower and her boy with her." There were many eyes on him, but he could not stop now. The whole thing must come out. "They hung a strong door, and there was to be no food. No water. Not for either of them. He was so angry."

"It was suicide" Lamoric said. "I can understand. The shame of it. She never meant-" But Durand wouldn't let him go.

"We held her up in that tower, Lordship. I caught her by the arm! We kept her there days, the babe starving. I stood guard, Lordship, till I bolted for Ailnor. And I found the old man praying, Lordship. Praying to shake his nightmares when I came. No one saw Alwen after. No one. Radomor was leading us through the wilds with his men playing that she had been moved. That she was at some country manor. But I saw him, Lordship, sitting in his father's throne with his skull hot as a cauldron. I was there."

It was almost as though Lamoric had crumpled under his cloak. The rain came down.

"He cannot be king, Lordship," Durand said. "We must go back. The Red Knight is lost, but you've got your own own name. You can ride back under your father's colors. They're deadlocked up there. Those traitors can't pry the king loose, but Radomor of Yrlac is coming and he'll lead the South Company against Lord Moryn." They all knew Moryn. Even Lamoric knew him, no matter how he talked. Moryn would do as his honor demanded. He would lose, and he would know, but he would kneel and offer the victor his boon. He'd be honor-bound and Radomor would use those bonds to twist one knife-slim favor from his bones. There was only one thing Radomor wanted. "You have to stop him." name. You can ride back under your father's colors. They're deadlocked up there. Those traitors can't pry the king loose, but Radomor of Yrlac is coming and he'll lead the South Company against Lord Moryn." They all knew Moryn. Even Lamoric knew him, no matter how he talked. Moryn would do as his honor demanded. He would lose, and he would know, but he would kneel and offer the victor his boon. He'd be honor-bound and Radomor would use those bonds to twist one knife-slim favor from his bones. There was only one thing Radomor wanted. "You have to stop him."

Durand could see Lamoric struggling with the air, his sopping cloak moving with his shoulders. He could feel the water sliding down his face, pooling in his boots.

"G.o.d, Durand," Lamoric said. He shook his head. A long silence pa.s.sed. Durand had asked him to march back to Tem Gyre with all his dreams wrecked. He asked him to throw his lot in with a man he hated. There was no sound but rain.

"If I go, we must all go," Lamoric snarled at last.

Durand blinked back at him a moment. Without a word, the others had all risen by now, wrapped in shrouds of tarp and rain-cape, silent and staring.

"If I must go," said Lamoric grimly, "you must ride with me and fight beside these men-these men who remember. You must join me when I join Lord Moryn and his companions after they've set old Waer in the boneyard."

Durand stared down at the young lord, eye to eye."Yes, Lordship," he said. "So long as we ride for Tern Gyre."

It was then that Agryn spoke, looking north beyond them all to where Tem Gyre must stand beyond the rain.

'To Tern Gyre," he said.

26. The Eve of Battle

Even from the bridge, Durand could see they'd shut the gates.

"Could it be dusk?" Heremund wondered. He squinted up into the rain. "I don't know how they could tell'

Rain dropped past the men down the forty-fathom gulf on either side of the bridge. !

"Hmm," said Heremund, remembering. 'They'll be up on the watchtower now, all crowded with the priests, squinting off toward the Barbican Strait, just like old tyillan did, the night he gave up his eyes. I'll wager the rain's likely thrown a chill over it. The poor things'll be damp right through then-silks. Maybe someone will have brought a few cups of hot malmsey." He shivered.

Up at the head of the column, Durand picked out Lamoric side-by-side with Deorwen, his lady wife. They were just coming under the ship's-bow arch of the gatehouse. Rather than hiding back among the baggage, now Deorwen rode pillion right where everyone could see her. Her idea. Where before she'd been a liability to Lamoric's Red Knight pose, now she made a perfect blind. The man on the palfrey was no Knight in Red. This This was Lamoric and was Lamoric and that that his new wife, the poor thing dragged along in the rain. his new wife, the poor thing dragged along in the rain.

The rest of the train waited on the bridge. Durand could hear Badan muttering just loud enough to make himself plain.

"Wh.o.r.eson boy's mad. Changing a few cloaks and hopping on each other's ponies ain't going to fool n.o.body. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds'll know us right off."

"It ain't got to fool them long." Durand glanced to see Guthred speaking for him. The man's eyes were on the gatehouse. "It's just to grease us under the gate. If they press him, His Lordship can say whatever he likes. We're a bunch of thugs he met on the road, saying we'd left the service of some strange knight or other. Whatever he likes. He's son to the Duke of Gireth, and there's little enough light anyway."

"The whole thing's daft," Badan concluded. "Riding back for something that ain't even happened."

At the head of the line, one of Guthred's boys was shouting up through the drizzle to the gatekeepers. Only tension kept Durand's head from falling against the gelding's neck.

'Then they'll head down to the docks," Heremund was saying. It took Durand a moment to remember. He had an image of the n.o.bles crowded atop the round watchtower. "The whole wellborn mob and a dozen gilded priests all tramping down the cliff stairs, dragging their fur hems behind them. I think it's wine they pour then. Every man in the company."

A face appeared among the battlements.

Guthred's man shouted something like: "Lord Lamoric, son of Abrava.n.a.l, Duke of Gireth."

Durand kept his eyes on the guards: two now. It should have been easy. Durand could make out little more than the curve of their wide-brimmed kettle-hats. Wind and rain s.n.a.t.c.hed words away. Abruptly, the helmets switched. It looked like the two guards had turned around, putting their backs to the bridge.

It made no sense.

Just then, a shiver ran down the spine of the stone bridge under their feet. Someone inside had started winching up the old gate.

No one moved.

For several heartbeats, they just sat there, every man wondering what would come next, but no sign came from the gatehouse. Finally, Lamoric spurred his palfrey forward and the whole company marched under the gates.

Durand made his way under, muddy rain dripping from the teeth of the portcullis to slither down his neck, but then the head of their line seemed to ball up. Men in the gatehouse jostied, their horses spooked by the sudden stop in the cellar dark of the place. They might nearly have been underwater.

Durand slipped the gray through and into the courtyard where every one of Lamoric's retainers stared up at a tower on the seaside wall. Half the magnates of old Errest stood there, still as stone or tapestry. It was hard to make them out. Everyone had rushed to the parapet, crowding close. Every mouth gaped and every eye bulged, staring out on the Broken Crown.

Up the inner wall to that tower swung a stair.

Though no word pa.s.sed between Lamoric's men, each one slid from his saddle and crossed to the stair. Durand found himself a step behind Ouen up the wall, but then, suddenly, the big man stopped, as frozen as all the others who had reached the battlements before him. Durand ducked behind him and slipped into a place at the parapet where he could see out over the Crown.

It came like a pond skater: a warship shimmering over the black Broken Crown. Two banks of long oars pulsed down its sides while every silver-pale plank and spar glimmered. A ram reached over the waves. A sail black as caverns hung against the night, the Eye of Heaven picked out on its midnight surface. Just as Durand understood that the warship was aiming to land at Solan's Solan's quay, an unheard order twitched her sweeps up: four standing rows. quay, an unheard order twitched her sweeps up: four standing rows.

She was coasting in now, and she must be Eagle. Eagle.

Through fathoms of rain and spray, a shape was plain on Eagle's Eagle's jutting forecastle: the figure of a tall man standing. The people around Durand were moving now, but Durand could not go. He leaned into the embrasure, narrowing his eyes. A long mantle swung round the man's shoulders, and, on his head, Durand thought he made out a metal glint. jutting forecastle: the figure of a tall man standing. The people around Durand were moving now, but Durand could not go. He leaned into the embrasure, narrowing his eyes. A long mantle swung round the man's shoulders, and, on his head, Durand thought he made out a metal glint.

He must get closer.

"Ah," said Heremund, tugging on Durand's cloak, "Now look here."

Heremund smirked. Around them, the crowd was draining away. Some flapped down the stair, making their way to the quay. He picked out another line darting across the courtyard and the safety of shrines and stone walls. King Raghal had gone.

"Something's coming, that's certain," said Heremund, shoving his nose back through the parapet. "And not only the ship."

Durand launched himself for the stairs. Here was Eagle Eagle slipping through a fissure in the world, an apparition before the magnates of the kingdom. She might be gone at any time. Somehow, Durand knew the vision to be as fragile as a tinder flame in the palm. He had to know what it meant. slipping through a fissure in the world, an apparition before the magnates of the kingdom. She might be gone at any time. Somehow, Durand knew the vision to be as fragile as a tinder flame in the palm. He had to know what it meant.

Only as he dodged past Heremund did something cause him to look back. Behind the skald, Prince Biedin stood alone, the last man on the watchtower. He stared down on Eagle's Eagle's decks, his bearded chin caught in a curl of gloved fingers. The uncanny radiance of the Lost ship was in his face. decks, his bearded chin caught in a curl of gloved fingers. The uncanny radiance of the Lost ship was in his face.

Durand hit the wet cliff stairs so quickly his smooth-soled boots, nearly pitched him into s.p.a.ce, but it was worth the stab of panic when he caught sight of Eagle Eagle once more. She had not blown out or flickered away. Durand thought of the long voyage to this sh.o.r.e from the Throne of Heaven. Creation had been turning more than two centuries since the Lost Princes set sail, and only through this narrow crack, this anniversary day as it swung round, had light slipped through from beyond. once more. She had not blown out or flickered away. Durand thought of the long voyage to this sh.o.r.e from the Throne of Heaven. Creation had been turning more than two centuries since the Lost Princes set sail, and only through this narrow crack, this anniversary day as it swung round, had light slipped through from beyond.

He ran, slapping down the open stairs as the great warship slid into the sheltered blackness below, its hull and sweeps throwing cold light mirroring deep. He saw bearded fighting men standing at their oars, colorless as lead and quicksilver.

Just a few paces separated Eagle Eagle and the quay. and the quay.

Durand charged. He leapt around slow-footed courtiers. He plunged ten steps at a time. Then, just as his feet slapped the quay, Eagle Eagle touched the sh.o.r.e, and, in an instant, the eerie light winked out. touched the sh.o.r.e, and, in an instant, the eerie light winked out.

In the sudden gloom, sound stretched. The waves hissed and rolled. The wind moved under the cliffs. Finally, Durand heard the shuffle of other feet: soft boots from the stairs behind him. The last he or anyone had seen of the great warship and its crew was the face of the man on the forecastle. Its image swam in Durand's eyes: long, all jaw blade and cheekbones. On the brow, a chill crown, and two black pits where the shadows swallowed the eyes. He could almost see the man stepping ash.o.r.e, but the gap between earth and sea had been too far.

A prodigy.

As THE WIND THE WIND lashed the headland, every man among Lamoric's retainers mucked in to pitch the tents. Hammers pounded stakes into the sod. Callused hands held center-poles. Despite cuts and gashes from his fight with Waer, Durand caught hold of the heaviest rolls of canvas, lugging them like corpses, and burying himself in hard work like a penitent. When the carts were empty, he tramped toward Guthred by the heap of trunks and barrels. The old shield-bearer stood with one of Biedin's men: a serving man sent along when Biedin's seneschal gave them the patch of ground the Knight in Red left behind. lashed the headland, every man among Lamoric's retainers mucked in to pitch the tents. Hammers pounded stakes into the sod. Callused hands held center-poles. Despite cuts and gashes from his fight with Waer, Durand caught hold of the heaviest rolls of canvas, lugging them like corpses, and burying himself in hard work like a penitent. When the carts were empty, he tramped toward Guthred by the heap of trunks and barrels. The old shield-bearer stood with one of Biedin's men: a serving man sent along when Biedin's seneschal gave them the patch of ground the Knight in Red left behind.

'Truth be told," the seneschal's man said, "I thought we was going to lose half of them when I saw them running for the shrine."

"The shrine?" Guthred asked.

"It's all in pieces. His Highness has the lads tearing it up. It's in with the new, and everything's out: icons, altar, tiles, and floor. All these high lords and ladies they come rushing in, the ones running from the watchtower. We don't have light in there. And the floor's all up. Nothing but pits. The young Duke of Cape Ernes, I think he's got his wing in a sling for it now."

Guthred nodded, but, as the pair saw Durand, the stranger shut up. Durand picked up a trunk. The thing felt like they'd packed it with anvils.

"There," Guthred said, pointing, "Berchard's tent." Durand pa.s.sed other conversations, killing most with a step into earshot. Badan, though, was chasing off anyone who got close, and he found Durand almost right away.

"I've just been talking with the boys next door, Durand," he said, breathless. "You know what they tell me? Our Moryn's Marshal of the North, sure, but Baron Brudei Hearkenwald is South Marshal. The man's got sixty winters on his roof."

Badan stabbed ten stiff fingers into Durand's chest, knocking him back a step under the weight of Berchard's trunk.

"Brudei Hearkenwald, ox. You reckon His Lordship's going to grin when he wakes up and it's old Brudei he's come back for? And all with his last horse and mail coat wagered on the end of it? And half the peers knowing he's the Knight in Red, likely, and knowing him for a bad loser who can't play his own game by his own rules?"

Durand dropped the trunk and raised his hand. He wanted to roar back at the fool, to snap a fist into his toothless jaw. But his hand was full of blood. Waer's long cut had opened.

Durand bent and hoisted up Berchard's trunk, turning from Badan with the man's scorn blazing on the back of his neck.

SLEEP WOULD NOT come. come.

Was Lamoric's Red Knight game one of these open secrets? After five moons riding, someone must have caught on, hearing the man's voice or catching loose talk. Men drank, and the peers of Errest were, half of them, family. Durand had betrayed Lamoric, and now Lamoric looked a fool, crawling back on his father's name where his own would not take him.

But now they were back in the same mud waiting for the same battle.

Only it wasn't the same battle at all. This was no game. If they won, they'd keep Moryn off his knees and Radomor off the throne.

Durand rolled onto his shoulder.