“Jurihm,” she repeated with a vague nod. The huntress stiffened a little as she shifted her gaze to where Evadine stood in what had been the central courtyard of this keep. One of the prisoners knelt before her, hands bound behind his back, head bowed and trembling under the weight of the Anointed Lady’s stare. She asked him questions I couldn’t hear, though her face held none of the calm solicitation I remembered from her prior encounters with captives. I knew her attitude towards our foes had changed during our time apart, the months when she thought me dead and the Alundian rebellion still raged. The Covenant Company was rich in quietly spoken tales of her angry condemnation of captured Alundian rebels, more than a few of whom had danced at the end of a noose when they refused to recant their heresy.

  “You lay with her,” Lilat said, a simple, uninflected statement of fact delivered in a tongue that no one within earshot could understand. Nevertheless, I couldn’t contain an instinctive start at her bald honesty. “I smell her on you,” she added by way of explanation, continuing to regard me without expression save for a raised eyebrow.

  Looking into her steady gaze, I was unable to divine any emotion attached to this statement. I pondered the notion that she might be jealous, but found it unlikely. Perhaps she was angered by my lack of caution, for even she knew the danger inherent in what had happened in the woods. However, my gift for parsing meaning from face and posture remained strong. A moment of additional scrutiny revealed an incremental narrowing of her brows that told of something I found more troubling than jealousy or anger: disappointment.

  Beset by the rarest of sensations, to wit: finding I had nothing to say, I could only dumbly return her regard until she consented to direct her scrutiny at Evadine once again. “Morkleth,” Lilat said. “You remember this word?”

  I did, but resented the implication. “She is not cursed,” I said.

  “It has other meanings. The man you called the Chainsman, he was morkleth. Not only cursed but outcast. He committed no act that your people would term a crime, but still the Eithlisch decreed he be shunned and driven away. It is the role of the Eithlisch to seek out those that will one day bring danger to the Caerith.” She nodded at Evadine, who had taken a step closer to the cowering captive, questions emerging from her lips in a hard, demanding snap. “He would not have suffered her to live among us. I wonder why your people do.”

  Evadine serves the Malecite… I pulled my looted cloak about my shoulders to conceal a shudder, moving away with a parting mutter. “You do not understand her, or us. This is not your land.”

  “Morkleth has the same scent,” she replied as I walked away, voice soft but I heard it. “Wherever it may be found.”

  By the time I reached the courtyard the prisoner had slumped on to all fours, his face pressed into the ancient, cracked flagstones as he sobbed under the weight of Evadine’s enquiry. “How many are at Athiltor?” she grated, leaning down to shout the question into his ear. “How many, you unbelieving cur?!”

  “J-just…” the fellow gabbled through snot and tears. “Just a… simple soldier, m-my lady. Only joined cos they paid a full silver for the first week…” I could see no signs of torture on him so this state of compliance had been achieved through terror alone.

  “Silver?” Evadine’s scowl deepened into a glower. “You sell your very soul for a disc of metal?”

  “G-got… children, m’lady,” he gabbled back. “Their ma died last winter so had to leave ’em with their grandmother. Gotta feed ’em…”

  This allusion to soon-to-be-orphaned infants, real or the imaginary product of mortal fear, made scant purchase on Evadine’s resolve. “A father should set an example for his children,” she stated, her hand going to her dagger. “Even though it may cost him his life.”

  “May I crave a moment with this man, my lady?” I said, stepping closer. My interruption drew a brief glare of anger before she mastered herself, hand slipping from the dagger’s hilt. I smiled and gave a meaningful inclination of my head to the snivelling man on the ground. Nodding, she stepped back, allowing me to crouch at the prisoner’s side.

  “Let’s get you up, shall we?” I said, grasping his shoulders, gently easing him into a sitting position. The face he revealed as he straightened was that of a man somewhere close to his thirtieth year. He had several scars, old and new, a soldier’s face if ever there was one, with an accent that marked him as hailing from Alberis.

  “You’re a fair long way from home, eh?” I asked, removing the stopper from a canteen and holding it to his lips. “How long since you took the first coin?”

  “Years, my lord,” he replied after taking several hearty gulps, eyes continually tracking Evadine’s tall form pacing back and forth across the courtyard.

  “Kingsman, were you?” I asked, never one to stint on flattery. “Got that look to you.”

  “Just the ducal levies. Tried for the Crown Company once but the sergeant said I was too slow with the halberd. Truth was he wanted a bribe to let me in and I’d no coin for him.”

  “Sergeants.” I shook my head in sympathy. “Bastards all. What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Turner, my lord. Abell Turner.”

  “Very well, Abell Turner. As one soldier to another, I’ll make you a fair offer. Your life and your liberty in return for truth. How’s that sound?”

  His eyes darted towards Evadine once more as her boots scuffed the flagstones. Turner risked a glance at her hard, impatient face before his focus snapped back to me, face filled with the desperation of a drowning man flailing for the most tattered rope. Still, he managed to surprise me with his next words. “My men, my lord. They’re just poor fellows like me. Some I served with before, joined only because I did…”

  He fell silent at another, louder, scuff from Evadine’s boots, bowing his head with a shudder of fearful expectation. This was the first time I had seen how the Anointed Lady’s rage could be as potent a force as her love.

  “Life and liberty for them too,” I promised, ignoring the harsh sigh this provoked from Evadine. “But they, and you, will have to swear fealty to the Risen Martyr and an oath never again to take up arms against her.” I looked deeper into his eyes, stripping all solicitation from my voice as I added, “For to do so will cost you far more than blood.”

  His throat constricted and I realised he was fighting the urge to vomit. “Swear it I shall, my lord. My fellows too, on my soul.”

  I nodded, putting a tight smile on my lips. “Now then. The man who leads you, not the cleric, the one who commands the Council Host, what name does he go by?”

  “Captain Sorkin, my lord. Truth be told, I can’t recall hearing his first name.”

  “And what do you know of this Captain Sorkin?”

  “A man who knows his business when it comes to soldiering, that’s for sure. Had far worse captains in my time, though few who were so quick with the whip. Doesn’t stint with the flogging, does the Divine Captain.”

  “Divine?” Evadine said, the hardness of her tone causing Abell Turner to cower yet lower to the ground.

  “It’s what they called him, my lady,” he said, tone heavy with abject contrition. “The Ascendant and other clerics. His rank in the Covenant Host.”

  “You were garrisoned at Athiltor?” I asked, keen to recapture the man’s attention.

  He bobbed his head. “Aye, my lord. Six or seven weeks of drill before we were ordered here.”

  “You recall the Anointed Lady asked how many are at Athiltor. She and I would like an answer.”

  “I spoke truth when I said I didn’t know. There were recruits arriving all the time, and what with all the works going on it was hard to gauge a true count.”

  “Guess,” Evadine instructed.

  “Five thousand, six at most. At least that was when we marched out. More kept coming, like I said, and…” He hesitated and I saw a decision in his face, the look of a man deciding which way to throw his lot. “And there was talk of others, hired swords from the east and across the south seas. There were already a few dozen of those savage archers there when we left, don’t rightly know how to say the name of their homeland.”

  “Vergundians,” I said, glancing at Evadine to share a moment of grim remembrance of their deadly skills during the siege of Walvern Castle.

  “Aye.” Turner bobbed his head again. “That’s it, my lord. Ragged and grimy looking lot they were, cut-throats the lot of ’em. Seemed strange the Covenant would spend coin on such folk.”

  “You spoke of works,” I said. “Describe them.”

  “Digging mostly, trenches and breastworks. Some walls but they weren’t solid like a castle, not much stone to be had at Athiltor.”

  I questioned him for close on an hour, probing for more details. The revealed picture indicated that Danick Thessil, in his new guise as the Divine Captain Sorkin, had managed to gather a reasonably disciplined force at the Covenant’s holiest city. It would also soon be expanded by a good many mercenaries and protected by freshly constructed fortifications. Evadine made a few forceful interjections, her questions pointed in their inference:

  “What of your captain’s dealings with the Crown?” she demanded. “What bargains did Ascendant Arnabus strike with the Algathinets?”

  In response, Turner could only shrink under her baleful glare and stutter out denials. “N-never saw a Crown agent the whole time I was there, m’lady. As for the Ascendant, saw him talking to the D— the captain a good deal, but never spoke to him myself.”

  “Come the morning,” I said once satisfied I had wrung all pertinent knowledge from him, “you and your fellows will swear your oaths and depart this place.” I leaned closer, fixing his gaze. “If you know who I am, you know I can hear a lie clear as any bell. If I catch even the smallest whisper of falsehood on the morrow…”

  “You won’t, my lord.” He pressed his forehead to the flagstones. “And… I thank you. The renowned mercy of the Scribe and the Anointed Lady is surely no lie.”

  “Seven thousand trained troops,” Wilhum sighed, holding his hands out to the fire. The hour was late and Evadine had summoned him to discuss our sudden wealth of intelligence, the palaver held out of earshot of the rest of the company. A veteran of more battles than either Evadine or I, Wilhum found little encouragement in our news. “Behind trenches and breastworks. Plus a bundle of Vergundian archers and Martyrs know how many more foreign bastards waiting for us.” He offered Evadine an apologetic wince. “It’s not a good prospect, Evie. My counsel: send Alwyn and I to Athiltor for a proper reconnaissance and take yourself back to Couravel to remind the Princess Regent of the value of your current alliance and have Lord Swain marshal the Covenant Host to march on Athiltor. We can, at least, be certain of their loyalty to you regardless of what the Luminants might proclaim. If joined with the Crown Company, we’ll have sufficient numbers to end this matter, though I’d rather not mount a campaign with winter on the way.”

  “I cannot treat with the Princess Regent,” Evadine stated. “For there is no such person. There is merely a woman who happens to be the sister of an unworthy bastard. The Algathinet family has maintained its hold on the throne through guile, murder and deception. I’ve little doubt they also had a hand in the villainy that took place here, well hidden though it may be. It’s time, Wil. Time to complete my mission.”

  Wilhum’s expression assumed a rigid blankness, regarding her in silence before looking to me, face still stiff but alarm writ large in his gaze.

  “Alwyn and I are of like mind in this,” Evadine told him. “There being no other course available to us.” She took a deep breath, releasing it with grave slowness. “To save all I must risk all. I must be queen, the Ascendant Queen. In me, Crown, commons and Covenant will be unified and the Second Scourge averted. Only then can this realm know peace.”

  Wilhum’s eyes lingered on me and I knew he hoped for words of restraint, words I couldn’t offer, not then. I was now as much Evadine’s captive as Turner and his comrades. I knew the grave import of her words. I knew what it portended, but I met Wilhum’s searching eyes with an expression of sombre agreement.

  He turned back to Evadine, voice faint and barely audible above the crackle of the campfire. “You know I will follow you in this as I have followed your every step since the Traitor’s Field. For loyalty is what I owe you, Evie.” He paused, drawing breath to add, “But you must know that this course invites war with Crown and Covenant both. I have no surety we have the strength for either.”

  “Fighting both at the same time is folly, to be sure,” I said, addressing my words to Evadine. “We deal with the Covenant first. Victory is the best fuel for rebellion, and that is what we are about, make no mistake. We triumph at Athiltor before making any mention of the Ascendant Queen’s rise.”

  “You speak as if we have an easy battle ahead of us,” Wilhum said. “Time is as much our enemy as this Divine Captain and his heretic host. Time to glean further intelligence. Time to gather forces we will surely need to storm the holy city.”

  “I’ll send my keenest scouts to Athiltor in the morning. And Eamond will ride with all haste to Couravel to summon the Covenant Host. I’ll also pen a letter to Princess Leannor relating what happened here, making it clear that resolving this crisis is Covenant business. I doubt she’ll wish to embroil the Crown in such a schism of the faithful. In fact, she’ll probably relish the chance to play peacemaker if it proves a protracted struggle, which it won’t.”

  “The Covenant Host won’t be enough,” Wilhum insisted. “Even if they can march here in time.”

  “The commons of the Shavine Marches and Alberis have answered the Anointed Lady’s call before. They’ll do so again.”

  “A mass of untrained churls is no match for real soldiers.”

  “No, but their numbers may turn the tide if need be. As for our own want of seasoned troops, I’ve a notion of where to find more.” I offered Evadine a regretful shrug. “Though I warn you, my queen, the price is likely to be steep.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The walls of Castle Ambris had a cleaner look than I remembered. The streaks of soot and mingled effluent that once marred the castle’s flanks were gone now, presumably scrubbed away with assiduous regularity by order of the duchess. Even during her years in the forest, Lorine had managed to impose a sense of orderliness on her surroundings. Deckin commanded the band but Lorine held dominion over the camp and woe betide anyone who besmirched it. I recalled how she had birched Erchel’s boyhood arse bloody when he decided to take a shit within smelling distance of our roasting pit.

  The adjoining village of Ambriside had also grown in both size and cleanliness; whitewashed walls in place of grey wattle and the thatching lacked the usual scorched patchiness. The field where Evadine had once stood atop a scaffold awaiting unlawful execution was now a stretch of well-maintained grass where gaggles of children played and a company of ducal soldiers paced through their drills. The impression of orderliness was further enhanced when these soldiers, spying a large group of armed riders following the road to the gate, quickly formed ranks and marched to bar our path.

  “The Anointed Lady and Risen Martyr Evadine Courlain requests an audience with Duchess Lorine,” I told the youthful captain standing at the head of the hastily assembled cordon. He stood in the middle of the road, eyeing us with a careful shrewdness that did much to diminish his boyish appearance. I saw no scars on his face but the way he appraised our number bespoke one well attuned to martial matters.

  “Captain Scribe, is it not?” he enquired, surveying the Mounted Company without particular hostility, but also a creditable pitch of caution. As was customary, his attention had lingered most on Evadine, albeit with none of the typical awe or lust. “I saw you fight the Pretender at the Vale,” he added. “Quite a scrap that was.” His accent was distinct in its common origins. A lad from the fields, or perhaps the forest? Lorine always did have a sharp eye for talent wherever it might be found.

  “Between you and me, he was an average swordsman at best,” I replied, without rancour despite my tendency towards a darkened mood at mention of the Pretender. “And it’s Sir Alwyn Scribe these days, but why stand on ceremony?” I nodded to the banner flying above the battlements, the silver hawk seeming to flap its wings as the red pennant snapped in the wind. “She is in, I take it?”

  “She is, my lord.” He gave a short bow and stood aside, barking out an order for his men to form column. I took note of the way they changed formation, almost the equal of the Crown Company in their speed and precision. “It will be my honour to escort you to the duchess’s presence,” the young captain added, bowing again.

  “Did you train this lot?” I enquired as I guided Blackfoot along the road to the gate. Like much else here, this showed signs of recent improvement. Once a rutted track prone to foot-sucking muddiness in the rain, it was now protected by a covering of flagstones. “They seem a good deal livelier of foot than I recall.”

  “I did, my lord,” the captain confirmed with a note of pride. “These are the Chosen Company, the duchess’s personal guard.”

  “Meaning she chose you too.” I saw him stiffen at that and he volunteered no more words until we entered the courtyard.

  “If the Anointed Lady would be kind enough to wait,” he said, bowing once more, “I shall announce her arrival to the duchess. Please help yourselves to fodder and water for your horses.”

  “So,” Evadine said as we led our mounts to the trough. “This is the woman who raised you, is it not?” She spoke in a quiet tone but there was a tension to her bearing I didn’t like, her features stiff with the effort of keeping a disapproving scowl at bay. I had given her a short but unvarnished account of my upbringing in Deckin’s band, complete with thievery and murder as well as isolated moments of humour or kindness, most of which featured Lorine.

  “In a way,” I said. “Though you’ll find her of far less matronly appearance than you might expect.”