Janny Wurts - The Curse of the Mistwraith

‘That’s a good knife for carving willow whistles,’ Jieret said. ‘I shan’t be needing it any longer.’ And he gestured toward its replacement, a narrow, quilloned main gauche he wore strapped to his belt. ‘Ath go with you, my prince.’

Arithon tucked the little knife into the tight-laced leather that cuffed his shirt. Then he pulled Jieret to him and exchanged a fierce embrace that he broke with a quick push to send the boy off toward his people.

Within the latticed sear of strong sun that striped through branches singed of foliage, Deshir’s clansmen in their war-stained, ragged leathers joined hands. Their circle parted to include Jieret, then unravelled a second time as a stocky figure in studded belts and black bracers broke away. Caolle, Arithon identified by the vehement thrust of the man’s stride. The clan captain had keen intuition, but in the absence of Dania’s sisterly intolerance, he retained all the style of thrown brick.

At the centre of the circle, incongruous in the slashed elegance of black silk and gold, Halliron stood in the restored splendour of his court clothing, his lyranthe tuned in his hands. He called.

But with Steiven dead and himself left trustee of the clans Caolle deferred to no one. He stamped across the churned ground with his bootcuffs slapping and his shoulders hunched up, and his whiskered chin jutted for argument.

Behind him, somebody said something commiserating and the clansmen quietly closed the gap.

Craggy from strain and sleeplessness, grazed by brush burns and patched red from accumulated midge bites, Caolle looked ready to murder. ‘You’re leaving us,’ he accused.

Suppressing a wince as his tone grated against an almost painful sensitivity, Arithon felt no answering anger. ‘I must.’ He looked back in forceful directness that forestalled Caolle’s bluster. Across the thicket the soft, sad notes of Halliron’s lyranthe gentled the quiet: the opening phrases of the ritual to sing Deshir’s dead into memory. This was the first open sentiment any clansman had shown, and would firmly and finally be the last.

The flight to take refuge in Fallowmere would begin immediately following the ceremony.

Caolle waited, fumingly impatient. Then as the poignance of Halliron’s playing touched even his bearish mood, he hooked large-knuckled thumbs in his swordbelt. ‘You can tell us why.’

Unflinching, Arithon continued to regard him. ‘I think you know. Where I go, Lysaer’s armies will follow.’ He drew a breath.

As though daring insults or evasions, Caolle clamped his hands under taut forearms. He was a man who liked his clothing loose and his belts tight; the blades that were visible on his person drew all the quicker, while the invisible ones stayed unobvious. He regarded his silent liege lord, his black eyes inimical as shield-studs.

The Prince of Rathain gave no ground. Sincere where before he had been secretive, he said, ‘I can neither repay nor restore your losses. Nor would I cheat you with promises I’m powerless to uphold. You gave me life and offer a kingdom. Your lord shared a friendship more precious. In return I give my word as Teir’s’Ffalenn that I won’t squander these gifts.’

That softness covered a will like steel wire, as Caolle had cause to respect. Touched by an uncharacteristic patience, he recalled the ballad of Falmuir and the uncanny tableau up the grotto. Forbearance allowed him not to rise to the hurt, that even after Etarra’s armies, this prince seemed too reticent to place his full trust in the clans.

In the clearing, at the centre of the circle, Halliron raised voice in cadenced expression of pure sorrow. Laid bare by the music, Arithon lost all composure. His throat closed and he half spun away, ashamed of the tears he could not curb. The music broke his will and his feelings for these stern, unbending people undid him. He felt Caolle’s hand close on his shoulder, as it had many times to comfort Jieret.

‘You could be my bastion,’ Arithon admitted, rarely vulnerable. ‘Except for Lysaer. Any who shelter me will become target for his armies. I would not see your great-hearted clans exterminated for my sake. And so I ask your leave to depart, unsupported and alone until such time as I can return and fulfil your cherished hope, to rebuild a city in peace on the foundations of old Ithamon.’

‘I’ve misjudged you.’ Caolle withdrew his gruff touch, and for a long minute the rise and fall of Halliron’s beautiful voice resounded through wood and clearing. Both men listened, each haunted by different regrets. Then Caolle raked back his scruffy, iron-grey hair. ‘I’ll do so no more. But in return, I ask your sanction to raise the clans of Fallowmere, and after them, clansmen the breadth of the continent.’

‘I’m against it.’ Arithon spun around. If his eyes blazed through a sparkle of unshed tears, the force in him was that of a sword unsheathed. ‘I wish no more killing in my name.’

Caolle’s stiff stance rendered the short silence eloquent.

And Arithon gave a sigh that seemed wrung from his very depths. ‘My wife and children were not murdered by headhunters.’ Gentled in a way Caolle would once have disparaged, the Prince of Rathain traced the rune on the clan chieftain’s marker with fingers too fine for the sword but that could, and had, killed in battle. ‘My losses are as nothing to yours. I say that raising an army begs a repeat of this tragedy. But I’m not cold-hearted enough, or maybe I’m no true king at all. I haven’t the nastiness to refuse you. My blessing is yours, if not my approval. Go in grace, captain. Care for Jieret, whom I love as my brother.’

In token of friendship, Caolle offered his palms and accepted the prince’s double handshake. Across their clasped grip, while the song of lamentation spiralled and dipped through the greenwood, he gave his liege a voracious appraisal. The small build and fine bones, the green eyes with their depths and veiled secrets; both harboured deceptive strengths. Nearly too late Caolle had discovered an integrity that admitted no compromise. He would never in words be forced to admit that this scion of Rathain was both perfectly suited and tragically paired with a fate that must waste his real talents. ‘One day you’ll be grateful for our support, your Grace. We lend ourselves gladly. One could say it’s not meet for Maenalle s’Gannley in Tysan to swear fealty to s’Ilessid unwarned.’ He released Arithon’s hands and stepped back. ‘Ath keep you safe from all harm.’

‘And you.’ Arithon’s mouth bent, a softening just short of warmth. ‘We’ve been adversaries. I’m not sorry. If I had my choice, your sword would go rusty for want of use. Hate me for that all you wish.’

Caolle’s chin puckered. For the sake of the mourning song still in progress, he coughed back a raw burst of laughter. ‘My sword,’ he said firmly, ‘will only get rusted when I’m dead. Dharkaron break me for idiocy, how did I come to swear fealty to a dreaming fool?’

‘You were duped.’ Arithon grinned. ‘Lord Steiven did that to both of us.’ He turned and, with quiet lack of ceremony, strode away from the riverbank.

Caolle watched him go, narrow-eyed, tightness like a fist at his throat. As Halliron struck chords for the lamentation’s final stanza, the war captain of Deshir’s clansmen whispered, ‘Go in grace, my prince.’

The song dipped and mellowed, softened through its closing bars to a brushed note that quavered and trailed away into the rustle of flame-seared leaves. By then the Teir’s’Ffalenn in his tattered black tunic had vanished from sight. Whether trees had hidden him, or some trick of shadow, Caolle found impossible to tell.

Dusk settled over Strakewood. In clear silver light, under trees like cut felt against cobalt, Arithon sat on a beech log. His tucked up knees cradled folded arms. His cuff laces dangled over hands without tension as he listened to the first, uneven chorus of frogs in the marshes. He savoured the quiet as day ebbed and softly surrendered to nightfall. The first star appeared, a scintillating pinprick between the pines; he looked on its solitary beauty without mage-sight to unlock its mystery.