David Weber - War Maid's choice

“No, Milord.” Leeana shook her head. “Or not primarily for him, at least. I’m not at all sure he was part of the plan from the beginning. I think he simply realized his patrons’ position is hopeless if His Majesty survives. He thought he saw an opportunity to make sure you didn’t, Your Majesty, but I doubt Cassan even realized he was here. And even if Golden Hill was part of the plot from the beginning, how could Cassan have been confident he was still alive?”

“Then why create confusion?” the Prime Councilor asked.

“Not for Golden Hill,” Tellian said slowly, his eyes on his daughter’s face. “For his own people.”

“That’s what I think,” Leeana agreed. She looked back and forth between Markhos and Macebearer. “We know the lies he spun for Hathan and Gayrhalan before he killed them, but we don’t know what he told his own armsmen after he murdered them. And when they charged, Your Majesty, they were shouting ‘For the King.’ I think he told his armsmen that we’ve either killed you or taken you prisoner. Most of those men think they’re trying to rescue or avenge you…and he wanted enough confusion for someone he trusts to get close enough to kill you before the others realized you weren’t already dead.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Macebearer nodded slowly and looked at Tellian.

“A remarkable daughter you’ve raised here, Milord,” he said.

“I’ve always thought so,” Tellian acknowledged with a faint smile.

“But if she’s right-and I think you are, Milady,” Markhos said, “-then the way to beat him is simple enough. All I have to do is show myself to his men and call on them to lay down their weapons.”

“No,” Tellian said immediately. The King looked at him, eyebrows raised, and the baron shook his head. “At least some of those men out there do know why they’re here, Your Majesty, and every one of those armsmen has a bow.”

“They wouldn’t dare-not in front of so many witnesses who aren’t part of any plot against me,” Markhos shot back.

“Your Majesty, they don’t have anything to lose,” Macebearer pointed out. “Any of them who were part of this from the beginning know your magi will get to the bottom of it in the end…if you live to order the investigation. And they know the penalty for treason. Any of them with a bit of backbone-or enough desperation-is going to figure he has a better chance of surviving if he engineers an ‘accident’ for you, no matter how suspicious the accident in question might appear.”

“That’s as may be,” Markhos said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that losses or no losses, he’s still got two or three hundred armsmen out there and we have less than thirty in here, even counting those of us who don’t have armor.” He swept one hand in a circular motion, indicating the surviving grim faced, scorched and bedraggled men standing around him with bows and swords in hand. “Eventually, they’re going to simply overwhelm all of you, and when that happens I think it’s unlikely I’ll get out of this alive any more than the rest of you.” He smiled crookedly. “I don’t doubt all of you are prepared to die defending me, but I’d really prefer you don’t. Especially not if I’m not going to survive anyway.”

“Your Majesty, you’re the King.” Tellian’s voice was flat. “You don’t have the right to risk your life the way other men do-not when the stability of the entire Kingdom depends upon you.”

“I have a son, I have a brother, and I have two daughters,” Markhos replied in an equally flat tone. “I am the King, Milord Baron, but there are others to bear the Crown, should I fall.”

“Your Majesty, we can’t-”

“Baron Tellian, we can.”

Blue eyes locked with gray, and tension crackled between them.

Cassan exhaled in noisy relief mingled with anger.

Stoneblade had moved with maddening deliberation as he organized the fresh attack. He’d used a dagger to scrape a diagram of the hunting lodge’s layout onto a cleared patch of ground, and he’d methodically questioned the survivors of the first attack to fill in the details. Then he’d assigned objectives to each troop of dismounted armsmen and made sure their troop commanders understood what they were to do.

Cassan was confident Dirkson and his squad had already known what they were to do, but Stoneblade’s careful organization was going to make their task more difficult. That was bad enough, but the baron suspected his captain was deliberately delaying the assault. Something about Stoneblade’s eyes, the set of his shoulders, shouted a warning to Cassan’s instincts.

He wanted to snap out the attack order, override Stoneblade’s dragged out preparations, but he dared not. If the captain truly did suspect the truth, a premptory order might be enough to turn reluctance into open resistance, despite his personal oath to Cassan. No. Better to wait. If Stoneblade refused to order the charge, that would be time enough to take drastic action. Once the captain did order the attack, he’d be just as committed as Cassan-or just as guilty of treason, at any rate-and a man like Stoneblade didn’t do things by halves. Besides A bugle blared suddenly out of the forest behind him, and Cassan wheeled his horse in shock as a long line of cavalry walked slowly out of the shadows towards him with lances ready.

He’d never met the burly, fair-haired man riding beside the gray and white banner, but he recognized the arms of the Pickaxes of Lorham. The full-moon banner of the Quaysar temple streamed on the breeze beside it, and the woman riding beneath that banner wore the surcoat of an Arm of Lillinara.

His heart sank, but he faced the newcomers with the courage of a man who had nothing left to lose.

“Stand where you are!” he snapped.

The oncoming banners halted a hundred yards away and he heard his own armsmen climbing quickly back into their own saddles behind him, yet that upright thicket of lances never wavered.

“What’s your business here?” Cassan shouted across the distance.

“A question I might fairly ask you, Milord Baron,” the man who must be Trisu of Lorham replied coldly. “This is the West Riding, not the South.”

“I know perfectly well where we are. And I ask you again- what brings you here? ”

“A threat to the Kingdom,” Trisu said flatly. “One I believe I’m beginning to fully understand.”

“A threat to the Kingdom, is it?” Cassan shot back and barked a contemptuous laugh. “The only threat to the Kingdom I see here is you, Milord! You and that traitorous bastard you serve!”

“Have a care, Milord! Baron or no, any man who names me traitor will answer with his life!”

Cassan sneered as he realized how badly outnumbered Trisu actually was. Even supported by the Quaysar Guard-and how dangerous could armsmen who took orders from women truly be? — he had less than half the men Cassan still retained.

“I’ll call you whatever I choose,” he said harshly. “Your baron’s already murdered the King! No doubt you were part of the same plot. I order you in the name of the Crown to lay down your weapons and surrender now or pay the penalty for your crimes!”

“If you think you can take our arms, come and try,” Trisu’s voice was a glacier grinding mountains into rubble, and the upright lances shivered and came down all along the front of his line.

“Very well-on your own head be it!” Cassan drew his saber and looked over his shoulder at his armsmen. “Take them! For the King!”

“ For the King! ” his men thundered, and they charged.

A baron had no business in the front line of a cavalry melee, and Cassan let his armsmen charge past him. Trisu’s men and the Quaysar guards spurred to meet them, and Cassan smiled thinly as the two forces slammed into one another and he realized the newcomers were even more badly outnumbered than he’d realized. He actually owed that idiot Trisu a vote of thanks! Stoneblade would be committed now, whatever else happened, and it wasn’t as if “ Kalatha! Kalatha! Kalatha for the King! ”