The Marchland captain led Lord Aldred through the stone passages of Gryphonhold. They met no one, as every man and woman was at their station. Behind them strode the Lord’s Squire and two trusted Dragongate Men-at-Arms, whose iron-shod boots echoed in the stone corridors; their harness jingled as they marched.
Treason was what he had told them it would be. In that tower room he had made it clear to those knights and captains. Even to raise the possibility of surrender was treason, he had warned them. They had not seen it that way. They had said that Gryphonhold could not withstand such a siege. Nowhere could. The Vale was cut off, they had said. The castle must fall eventually, and in great carnage. Think of the people, they’d said. Better terms were always gained from an Enemy who had not been forced to storm your walls at great cost. The Grey Leopards had men to spare. They would eventually prevail. Why not avoid the suffering? Who in all reason did not seek terms? It was their duty to do so. If we sent to know their terms, they had insisted, what harm could there be in that? Lord Aldred had authority in the King’s absence, they had pointed out. He should use it now to ask for terms. They knew a way, a sally port guarded by trustworthy soldiers (trustworthy to them, Aldred had thought, they should not have given me that). Messages could be sent and replies received, they had explained. But they must send to the Leopards now, before the King wrought such carnage below that they would spurn any offer to treat fairly. They should not risk such a thing. If only Lord Aldred would send a message, they’d said. Look, a message had been prepared for his mark and seal, they need lose no time!
Aldred’s rage and indignation had been beyond all measure, yet he was a wise man, with mastery over his passion. Thus, he had tried to reason with them, but nothing he said would move them. Shrewd as he was, he had divined doubt amongst them as to what he, Aldred, might do. Yet, he had sensed no doubt amongst them that they were right. He had begun to see from the way many of them spoke that this was no mere making the best of a bad situation. Rather, they positively welcomed the Leopards, as if the attack was a liberation, not an invasion. A liberation from what? From the rule of a good and a wise King? What order and prosperity and safety there was in the Fallen Kingdoms came from this King and his brave little realm. Surely they must see that? So, he had ended by cursing them for deluded fools, and denouncing their cowardice and treachery.
They had not liked that, of course, yet it had not shamed them. They had been angry that he would not agree with them and do their bidding. He had told them that their doom was for the King to decide. For now, all Aldred would require them to do was refrain from acting against the defence of the citadel. They had said nothing to this, beyond angry murmurs. Aldred could not have pushed the matter further; to provoke outright defiance would only have made matters worse. Some, yet might still have been waverers in the cause of the curse’d Leopards. Yet, defiance had not been far off. They had barred his way when he had made to leave, and swords had been half drawn. His Squire, who had remained in the doorway, and not party to the debate, needs must have heard some of the loud and angry words, and he had started forward to his Lord’s side when he had seen blades begin to scrape on scabbards. He, too, had drawn his sword. Without turning to look in his Squire’s direction, Aldred had waived him gently back. With calm face and hard ice-like eyes, Aldred had stared down his antagonists. This had frozen them in hesitation, but the tension would have snapped eventually, then they would be blood, Aldred had feared; he would be dead and the conspirators committed beyond all hope of return. Then Forrada had stepped forward, “No,” he had said, simply, “not like this.” And, ushering the Squire out before them, they had left the council unmolested together.
Later, Aldred asked Forrada why he had spoken as he had.
Forrada had been subdued since the encounter in the tower room, and sounded uncomfortable as he spoke, “I am Nerian’s man, set to spy on you, set to make you see things our way,” then he paused, grimaced, and added, “set to kill you if need be.”
“Quite so, so you agree with them?” asked Aldred.
“Yes,” replied the captain simply.
“Yet now you have betrayed them,” said Aldred.
“Yes …,” the man paused, his eyes downcast, then he began again, “I …,” and faltered.
“Would not go so far?”
“Yes.”
“Yet those in that room, or at least enough of them to carry the others with them, they would go that far?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“As far as necessary to let the Leopards triumph and free our land of the curse of the less worthy”
“The less worthy?”
“The greedy lords, gluttonous clerics, the outsiders ever plaguing our shores, the heretics and infidels, the beggarly kind, the elves and other abominations, the monsters left to haunt the margins of our settlements. The land will remain barren and cursed and honest men poor until all is cleansed.”
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“I see,” replied Aldred, “Quite the list. am I on it, I wonder. A word of advice, in case you should live long enough to prosper from it. Treason, sir, is a path you cannot tread but part of the way to stop at the limit of your comfort. It is one that takes you far further than a man of conscience can go and yet survive the desecration of his wits and the loss of his soul. Remember that. You may yet turn from that path; perhaps in your heart you have already, or perhaps your heart hesitates, because you now betray someone, whichever way you turn. Which, then, is the greater betrayal; which might save, and which will damn, your eternal soul?”
Aldred let that sink in. Forrada was downcast and stood mute.
“Well, Master Forrada,” Aldred resumed, “let me save you from the agonies of choice. It seems that you occupy a most uncomfortable position. Yet, if you wish to outlive this day with any vestige of honour, you had better go about with me and help to frustrate your cause.”
They had been busy since then checking the defences and the men there, sounding out the men, picking through the barrel for the bad apples. He had sought out Lord Eric the Elding. It was not for him, Aldred considered, to set the Vale’s soiled honour before a stranger, even one now a brother-in-arms, so he was circumspect, but he asked that the heir of Trenisslia might have his most trusted men on call. Eric hid his curiosity, and gravely assented. On the King’s return, Aldred and Eric were at hand. When the portcullis at the castle gate had clattered down ‘accidentally’, it was claimed, between divisions of the King’s returning cavalry. Aldred had moved swiftly to relieve the tower guard with Eric’s picked Trenisslians. When he saw Aldred beyond the gate, the King nodded at the blue tabards over the arch and cocked a questioning glance at his counsellor. By the time Aldred had completed his report, the King’s face was set grim. There was cold fury in his eyes as he gazed unseeing. Yet, he had said simply that Aldred’s actions were meet, and, so, they had set about their work, to prise from treacherous hand the dagger that now pricked the heart of the Vale.
Thus, it was at the day’s end that Aldred and Forrada now hurried through the torchlit passages on their way to check the last section of the defences; a watch whose fate was unknown. They hoped to find a loyal pocket of men at the outer wall and give succour to them. Sturdy men, Aldred accounted them, but men, who might yet be unaware that they had enemies within, as well as without, surrounding them.
***
It was, reflected Sacrissa, undoubtedly turning out to be a night to remember, assuming, of course, either of them survived to remember it. What she had desperately wanted to do was rest, rest and reflect. She felt she was on the cusp of insight regarding the mysterious Huntress but was too dog tied to come to it. The blood she had been forced to wade through to get even this far on this madcap jaunt, she pushed to the back of her thoughts. She whittled instead over the presence of her sigil overlooking this uncanny vale. Had her father, had all their fathers, been here and seen that stone raised? It seemed insane yet attempts to dismiss the thought were met with the memory of that implacable carving. She had, however, more immediate concerns.
The evening had started out as unpleasant, but the night was waxing to downright dangerous.
The ‘govies’, if that’s what she should call them, had been first on the darkening scene. They were a sort of over-enthusiastic malignant bat. Usually endearingly timid, bats, Sacrissa had always thought, and she had often been happy in their company on her moonlit rooftop excursions. These flying rats however were bold and vicious little … one tangled in her hair and, yes, bit painfully on her ear while she was collecting firewood. Her left ear, she noted with a crumb of satisfaction. Still … faerie tales and nursery rhymes had no business coming true, she considered. Anyway, she’d batted it away; ‘ha-ha,’ she thought, ‘batted the bat away!’ Oh, that was terrible, she realised, like the jests of her father. No, she must not succumb to that, even in the face of angry bats, or, at least, with angry bats in her face. What next, she had asked herself? Well, she’d regretted the question when it was answered almost immediately by red glowing eyes, hundreds, gathered in clusters, staring out at her between the leaves of the little brown trees. Then they all went dark, and she heard much scurrying and clacking, almost like talk, amongst the boughs. Nervously she backed away. Then there was a swishing and she saw in the moon’s faint glow hundreds of tiny spidery creatures swinging on threads between the trees, lacing up the space between them with webs, even down the length of the trunks. The clearing was being sealed.
She made her way back to Sigird, and was about to feed the fire when she noticed that Sigird was roasting a small spitted animal in the flames. It didn’t look familiar, a sort of rat with a wolf’s maw, so far as she could make out.
“What’s that?” she asked Sigird.
“Oh,” the girl replied, looking up, “I’m not sure. I imagine it’s a gorby. It had a bit of a go at me, my knees, actually, while you were collecting more wood, and I thought ‘there’s not much eating on him, but waste not, want not’.”
“Well, there are also large and nasty spiders in the trees – your bidyes, I suppose – they’re closing all the gaps between the trees with webs, so, if we survive the night, we might have to cut our way through in the morning.”
“Well, they haven’t blocked the gap over there,” said Sigird, indicating, with the spitted gorby, the gap between the trees and the bank to the southwest, “Too wide, I ’spose”, she added.
“Well,” said Sacrissa, “by your account we still have, what, horiboos and naynells to look forward to, so we might need to make a break for it out that way.”
“You’re forgetting the panting dangazone,” said Sigird. They fell into an uneasy silence, lest the casual tone of their chat seem forced by lightly speaking of their peril. On the other hand, that their prospects seemed gloomy was not a thing to dwell upon. Presently Sigird spoke again, “You know, I think this is almost ready.”
“Ugh!” said Sacrissa, but they neither of them had the chance to find out if there was good eating on a gorby, for then a great shape loomed in the south-west corner of the clearing, blocking their exit, and began slithering towards them.
***