Season of the Sword (Part 5) - A Revision

[DoctorM]

[This the fifth part of my revised "Season of the Sword".  It does feel longer than the version from the Long Ago...and odd that I'm revising it at Christmas. Nonetheless...I have enjoyed this—- a chance to see how my characters have changed in my own mind. As always, comments from those of you out over the aether are invited and welcome.]

Season of the Sword (Part 5) - A Revision

The road ran west and south into the mountains. They rode under a sky more white than blue into the latter days of the northern spring. Thin dust plumes rose ahead of them where parties of avant-riders dashed down side trails. There was a spring wind down from Eastmarch and the white wolves of Daerborne danced on the bannerstaffs.

East of the Arranal country, the ploughed lands began. Smears of green ran up terraced hillsides; here and there huts clung to the slopes, no bigger than tumbled boulders. From his horse, Falkenberg could see peasants bent double in the fields, scratching a living out of rock and the thin film of soil. He stretched in the saddle, pushing with the muscles of his back against the weight of his hauberk. He watched the figures bend and rise up on the slopes.

They were entering Gwynedd. Torenth spilled out through the mountains into the green of the Gwynedd borderlands. Enemy country, now. That part was hard to hold in his mind. Meroz, he thought. The curse of Meroz. That was what the little Rhendall bishop had said about Gwynedd at the final Mass: Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

There were peasants standing next to the bend in the road, watching them ride. Their hair and beards grew wild; their skins were inlaid with dirt. They stood stooped on gnarled, bare legs and looked at the men-at-arms with sullen, vacant eyes, whispering to one another in thick mountain speech. The words were all growls and slurred letters. Falkenberg guessed at what they were saying, all about Deryni and witch-blood. He looked back. Courcelles and Morgánn were trotting up. Courcelles drew to a halt and leaned forward in the saddle.

"Richard— whose people are these? Who do they belong to?"

Falkenberg pulled his horse out of line. "No one," he said. "This is mountain country. Sighere's men probably come through to raid at harvest, but they're nobody's people. They'll say they're free peasants."

"We can't have them here," Courcelles said. "They'll run off and tell the rebels we're here." Courcelles was staring off into the Arranl highlands.

"On what horses?" Falkenberg shook his head. "Let them run off. We'll be in Valoret before they find anybody to listen to them."

Morgánn looked down at the whispering peasants. They stared back at his quilted southern armour and the silver wolf's-head pendant he wore on a chain. He laughed at them and they fell back, making signs against the evil eye. One of them looked at Morgánn and made the sign of the Cross. Morgánn laughed again and called out to them.

"Gado," he said. "Cattle."

Courcelles looked at Falkenberg and made a face. "Fair Gwynedd," he said. "Fair Gwynedd and its fair folk."

Falkenberg swung round in the saddle, looking for Guy de Langenay. He swept a hand over the hillsides.

"Langenay! Five men the side. Clear off the terraces." He stabbed a finger out at a little clump of peasants. "Break them up. Run them off."

Guy de Langenay whirled his horse back down the line, calling out names. Ten of the Daerborne men-at-arms charged out from the column, pulling their swords free. They spurred their horses up the hillsides. The peasants howled and broke away, running hard for the ridges. The men-at-arms followed after Langenay, trampling through the ploughed terraces, chasing the peasants with the flat of their swords. They were calling out the Daerborne war-cry: Daerborne, Faucon!

Morgánn reached back and pulled his crossbow from its lashings. He stretched the string back and fitted a quarrel. He kicked the horse up another step or two and brought the bow to his shoulder. The man who'd made the sign of the Cross at him saw him and dashed off, running through the field, yelling in terror. The long, dirty tails of his smock trailed behind him. Morgánn rose in his stirrups and led him across the edge of the terrace. He squeezed his hand on the release. The man threw his arms out and lurched forward into the dirt.

Morgánn looked over and held his brother's eye. "Neat as a roe deer," he said. "I'm not fond of being called a monster these days. Not by this kind."

Falkenberg started to yell, but there was more howling on the hillsides. One of the peasants scrambled up from his hands and knees as the horsemen rode past and lashed out with a hoe. The last rider caught it on his sword and knocked it aside. He jerked his horse round and flailed down with the blade. The peasant held the splintered shaft of his hoe and tried to crawl out of the way. The rider turned his horse on its hind legs and hacked down. The man shrieked and flung up his hands. Even from the road you could see the spray of blood.

Everything changed in an instant. The men-at-arms drove their horses on, screaming the Daerborne war-cry, turning their swords on the peasants. The column on the road twitched, and Langenay yelled at them to stay in line. On the hillside, two peasants went down together, the blades sweeping through them like straw targets. The riders curved their horses aside. Another figure was cut down on the opposite hill. Falkenberg saw it happen; the dead figure might have been a woman.

His horsemen chased the last of the peasants up onto the crest and rode back down through the fields, trampling down the green stalks. Half a dozen bodies lay on the slopes. The men in line clapped and cheered. Guy de Langenay brought up his own sword in salute.

Falkenberg cut him off before Langenay started cheering. "That's enough, Guy. Christ, call them in before they go wild. That's more than enough."

Courcelles was at his side. "Do you want to burn the fields?"

Falkenberg looked out over the green terraces and shook his head. "Christ Jesus, why? Why bother?" He signaled for his squires and gestured. "Get me ale, someone." He looked over at his brother. Morgánn was trotting back to his own knot of admirers. Falkenberg looked at Courcelles and sighed. "Come on. Let's go—- Coldoire's where we're headed."


****

At the western mouth of Coldoire they found the outriders of the rebels. Two dozen men-at-arms in Culdi livery were camped in a cluster of huts set around a single barricaded farmhouse. He sent Morgánn's mounted crossbowmen in at dusk., their quarrels darting out into the backs and chests of the rebels. Courcelles' men swept around from the far side, their lances lost in shadow. They left fifteen of the Culdi men dead and fired the huts.

They rode all night and into the morning. At dawn they left the foot archers with half a dozen men-at-arms to wait for Carismont's column. The riders changed horses and rode on into Gwynedd, the white wolf of Daerborne and the scarlet aurochs head of Courcelles dancing on black banners. The north was alien and empty, all grey rock with dark, thick belts of forest winding in ribbons up the slopes. They turned south to the roads that led out of Cardosa Defile, and at dusk they camped on the ridges above Iomaire.

Falkenberg flicked bits of wood into the fire. Out past Iomaire it was raining, and he could feel the damp creeping east on the wind. He broke off more smoked sausage and white cheese. Out under the trees he could see the picketed horses. He tossed chips of wood at two of his men.

"You lot— Amarval, de Redvers. I want riders out on the road before dawn. And go find my squires. Tell them I'm riding my chestnut; the bay won't handle if it rains."

Morgánn passed a wineskin over. "You do want to run to it."

"I just want it over with." He let the wine run down his throat. "I want it to be Lammas. If we're alive at Lammas we'll be back in Daerborne and we'll be lords again."

Morgánn was looking out at the other fires. "You could tell me what Ariella's been talking to you about."

"About the same time you tell me what you and Damien really did to get tossed out of Grecotha."

Morgánn laughed. "You know that part: irreligious practices."

"Which tells me exactly nothing." He passed the wineskin back. "Rainier and I were taking bets. Either you two had a gambling hell set up in your rooms or you were running a boy-brothel for monks out of the library."

"I wish. Damien and I might've come home rich." Morgánn looked over again. "You and Ariella. We never talked about that, even at Valoret. I always thought I was the one who had all the wrong women. And then you and Ariella were together everywhere... You didn't even come ask me what she liked."

"Guess what the odds would be on that ever happening."

"She keeps confiding in you. You must've been good at something. Listen— older sibling: I'm getting married at year's-end. How about you?"

"Quit. Ariella trusts me. She's not marrying anybody."

Morgánn  laughed. "Damien says she's going to give you half the south and make you Lord Treasurer. It's a pretty thought."

"Damien wants you thinking we'll be rich so you'll bet more. That's all. She'll give us something, but she's not marrying me and I'm not sure I want to start bragging about an imaginary earldom."

"There are bets out, you know. About her marrying you. I might have money on you."

"Jesus, will you stop? Right now...right now, look. Daerborne's all I have. What matters right now is going home. You've got the Forcinn to look forward to. Daerborne's all I've got to go back to."

"You're too fond  of it," Morgánn said. "You think too much about going home. You're not thinking about how everything has to change."

Falkenberg put his head down on his knees. "Remember all the stories people told when we were boys, all the stories about the first Festils? The Great King on his white gelding, the Dark Prince and his archers? I used to listen to those every time there was some harper telling them. I used to read them over and over. If she can bring it back, I'll go up to Valoret. Better Ari than anyone else— that's only the fact. I want the summer to be over and I want us back at home. That's all I want to see."

"Damien says Rainier's the same way. You're both about one step away from being fey."

"Rainier and I, we're the last two viscounts in the kingdom. Everybody else has some newer title these days, some Gwynedd-grown honour. You're going down South to marry Sabrine and have Dom Davíd buy you a villa and a title. It all changes for you. I can't let it change for me."

****

The first of the riders from Carismont's column reached them at mid-morning. Damien de Corayne was with them in his green Healer's cloak. There was a longsword at his side, an amethyst in its pommel. He came through Arranal with half a dozen of the royal lifeguard. He brought his horse up, the sun playing on the silver threads worked into the collar of his cloak. He grinned down at them.

"My lord of Daerborne," he said. "The Earl of Carismont's compliments."

Morgánn clapped his hands together. "Well, look at you— Healer-Royal. Fancy sword, too."

Falkenberg looked at the royal guardsmen in their tawny and gold and turned back to Damien. He could feel the rage starting. "Goddamn it, Damien, goddamn it—- what are you doing here?"

"Carismont's coming," Damien said. "He'll be at Iomaire just after noon. Can we put the tents up against the ridge?"

"You know what I mean. Before I pull you off that horse, you tell me."

Damien shrugged. "I'm with the royal party. Ariella's coming with Carismont."

Morgánn looked at his brother and then back to Damien. "Oh, Christ Jesus."

"Bloody hell." Falkenberg looked away, the anger chill through his face. "Was this your idea? It couldn't be Carismont's or Kincardine's. It's a damned fool's idea. What happens if they take her, if they kill her?"

Damien shook his head. "It was the Queen's idea. She's a Festil. She told Carismont and Kincardine her place was with the army. The Great King led from the saddle, she said."

Falkenberg stared up at him. "The Great King had two grown sons and the best army in the West. She's all we have— all of us. Oh dear God."

"You can tell her," Damien said. "She'll be here at noon."

Falkenberg looked away, off west into Gwynedd. He felt empty and sick. This was all going bad around him.

****

Carismont was there just after noon, the long files of horse and foot coming up out of Arranal into the sunlight of the plain. David de Carismont rode at the head of the royal army, solemn and massive on his great grey. The light fell across the high, fine profile onto the silver of his captain-general's chain. The standards of Carismont came up behind him, the streaming silver star on its indigo field. His squires rode next to him with his greatsword and his battered and antique helmet.

Richard de Falkenberg and Rainier de Courcelles stood watching him: the last of his generation, the last of the warlords who'd served the third Festil and his son in the long, grinding campaigns in Meara and the Connait. The men-at-arms of Courcelles and the Daerborne Falkenbergs cheered for him, the last of the great earls of legend.

She came behind Carismont, alone within the circle of her silent lifeguards. She rode that morning in armour, in leather and steel, her reins held in mailed gloves. The long, dark hair flowed out from under a golden coronet onto the ermine collar of her riding cloak. The cheers began— Ariella! Ariella! —and then died away into silence and unease. She rode forward toward her two viscounts, Eastern-perfect in the saddle. Her horse was black and steppe-bred out of Arjenol, and she turned it to them. Her arm swept back.

"My lords," she said, "the royal army of Festil."

Behind her the columns stretched away, the royal knights and the loyalists in their hauberks and acorn helmets. Behind them came the Torenthi, eastern and disdainful, all in fine mail and spiked helmets here on the western edge of their world. Courcelles stared at them and turned back to Falkenberg, helpless.

Falkenberg was watching the faces: Carismont and the southerners pale and rigid, the westerners' eyes bright with greed, the Torenthi all frigid rapacity. He stood there unmoving and looked up at Ariella.

"My lady Queen," he said, "it's a grand sight, and God knows you're brave. But you're throwing it all away. All of it."

He shook his head and walked back toward the ridge under skies streaked with the grey of distant rain.


****

All evening Falkenberg sat on the ridge, working an oiled rag down the length of his sword blade, looking out at the plain. He tore strips of cold mutton apart in his fingers and sipped at the last of the Fianna wine.

The rebel armies had come in just before dusk, long plumes of dust that resolved themselves into patterns of horseflesh and steel. The fires grew out there on the opposite ridge, spreading down the sides and reaching south to Sighere of Eastmarch's camp.

He counted them: so many horses, so many men to a fire. Each number lay like ash in his mouth. The taste of loss crept through him. He felt it leaving him— Daerborne, Daerborne.

"Four thousand of them, do you think?"

Shadow fell across him and he looked up at Kincardine. "Closer to thirty-five hundred. But they're all there, Alasdair— Eastmarch's men and Culdi's rebels both."

Kincardine looked down the length of the enemy campfires. "Damien says they still think we outnumber them."

"Aren't we lucky."

Kincardine knelt next to him in the damp grass. "You didn't make any friends this afternoon, you know."

"It's a stupid thing for her to be here," Falkenberg said. "Stupid that you and Carismont let her come. She's the only important piece we have left on the board. You don't thrown away a queen for a gesture."

"I can't remember," Kincardine said. "Were you this much the corpse at the party when you were my squire?" He held up a wineskine. "Not Fianna, but it's at least from Tralia. You'll like it." He passed it across. "You might want to think about her position. She's the fallen princess. You know what people said about her at court, and what they said about her...after. Slut's probably the kindest word the westerners use about her when I'm not around to hear. But she's the queen, she's the heir. She's got to be with the army. Ariella's our banner. We need a Festil with us. Think about being her. Could you sit at Beldour and wait for the news? Could you live out your days at Beldour in exile?"

Falkenberg slid his sword back into its sheath. "I may have to learn."

Kincardine sighed. "I'm too old to beg my way round the eastern courts, Ricardo. My God, you're what? Not thirty yet. I'm forty-five. Carismont's rising sixty. Exile's for young men."

"My brother could play it for a year or two. I don't fancy it." Falkenberg took a long drink of the Tralia wine. Not the Fianna taste. "My God," he said, "Beldour's in the mountains— goddamn mountain valley. Daerborne's seacoast and saltmarsh. I had five new lannerets up out of the desert to fly this autumn. At least your castle's in the mountains. Beldour can't be that different from where you are at Aurège."

"No," Kincardine said. "No, it's not a thing I can do. Carismont can't do it, either." He looked up at the first of the stars. "It's not going to rain."

Falkenberg looked over at him. "Ariella says she can make it rain."

Kincardine shook his head. "I never believed you could do that. Damien and your brother say you can't do that. Anybody can say the words for a spell. You might as well order back the sea at low tide and take the credit." He pointed an arm out across the plain. "Have you looked at the field? Two opposed ridges and a half-hour's ride between, dead into one another. No bloody strategy, just dead-on into the melee and we try to grind our way across. It's not wide enough for them to use numbers and try to flank us. It'll just be hack and batter 'til somebody breaks."

"That's not how Carismont likes to fight, is it?"

Kincardine pointed up to midheaven. "Orion's there," he said. "It's clearer here than at Aurège— different mountains. Daerborne, there's only one road this time. It's everything I taught you to avoid back when you were a squire. One road, one battle. Everybody wants it over by tomorrow dark. Tomorrow is just about stamina and desperation. That's the only way we can win."

****

"Like black glass..."

Across the tent Falkenberg could hear the sound of the tiles clicking atop a heavy war chest. The voices went back and forth, Morgánn taking the tricks and Damien de Corayne talking about the Queen. Falkenberg lay back across the narrow camp bed and looked out through the flaps of the tent. Outside, the sky rippled and flashed above the tents: summer lightning or the pulses of the warding fields all the Deryni lords sheltered behind.

"She's like obsidian," Damien was saying. "You could draw blood against her edges. She's afraid, but she'll never show it. I mean, she's Festil and royal all the way to the bone. But you can see it on her. On Carismont and Kincardine and your brother, too. Fey, all of them,"

The summer lightning flared again. In Kheldour, they said, ribbons of light ran across the winter sky.

I've never seen that, Falkenberg thought.  Morgánn went to Grecotha, Rainier went out to Arjenol and east-of-east. I've only been to the Forcinn and Bremagne. He thought about the South. Falkenberg—- we never gave up the eastern form of the name. Never Montfaucon, not in all these years. Salt grass and sand dunes, hawks and the sea. We've had Daerborne since the Conquest. He squeezed his eyes shut. I'm five hundred miles from the sea.

The tiles clicked and re-formed. In the East they cracked animal bones in the fire and read the patterns. He half-remembered that they'd done something like that with the tiles back in the Great King's day. Taken the tiles, made them like the faces of warding cubes, laid them out and read the future. White at Prime, they'd told the young Festil. Rose Blanche and Black at the other corners, seven , five, nine: the Crown, the Sword, the Raven. The westlands to thy hand, o prince! The oldest, purest story of the Great King.

"Quarte." Morgánn's voice. "Eight in the Black."

"Not my trick." Damien again, tired and far away. "L'Estoille at Prime: Star, Crown, Rose, Sword.  Not my trick."

"Rose Noire and Sword opposing." Morgánn's voice. "That's a trick nobody takes."

Roses and Swords. Falkenberg turned away with his eyes closed. He'd held Daerborne for a dozen years now. The future had been easy enough, looking south to sea. His brother to Grecotha, a bishop by thirty. Morgánn to the Church, then to court. New quays at Daerborne, and Carminha ships lining them.

Daerborne was only a shell now, the halls emptied and the gates barred. All winter the agents of the Carminha had come, sitting up-hooded like witches in the cold rain while he sold it all: Moorish hangings bought up through Bremagne, silver serving sets, the packs of wolfhounds and staghounds his brother had brought in from the Connait, the gold-washed sword his father had borne at the old King's coronation, the furniture and the Fianna wine laid so lovingly in the cellars. Everything turned to silver, the silver turned to a handful of stones, emeralds and sapphires lying cold green, cold blue in his hands. My world down to a handful of stones. You could hold a vicomté in your hands.

My brother's Jews know. They know.

There were kings' faces stamped on coins like the Cross was stamped on communion wafers; the stones held their magic inside themselves. Kings corrupted gold and silver; their ministers took it in and sent the coins back debased. Land was meat and grain and lordship, but land they could take from you. Land remained behind for every new lord that rode over it.

My brother's Jews know the truth.

Only the stones were pure, Everything else betrayed you, but the stones stayed cold in your hand. The stones were there with him now, everything he'd ever had turned into the green and blue gems inside a locked chest small enough for a man to carry one-handed across the world. Eighty-six years at Daerborne dissolved into a chest of stones. They clicked together like gaming tiles. He could pour them into his hands, and they looked like wine pouring into the sea. Roses and Swords, the tiles said. All futures betrayed. Daerborne was only stones clicking together.

He slept, still waiting for the sound of the sea.

[Jerusha]

Oh my, oh my.  Facing destiny is not an easy task.  Well done!

[DoctorM]

Thank you, Jerusha!

[DoctorM]

Oh my, oh my.  Facing destiny is not an easy task.  Well done!

In one of my other stories, Charissa says to Christian that "men in your family keep falling in love with women in my family, and it never works out well, does it?" There's a kind of destiny there.

[Laurna]

I fear for the Lord of Daerborne for what future lies within the coming day.
Interesting view from a side we have not seen before.

[DoctorM]

I fear for the Lord of Daerborne for what future lies within the coming day.
Interesting view from a side we have not seen before.

I am looking forward to your thoughts on Part Six.

[DerynifanK]

There is certainly an ominous feeling here for Falkinberg. Did you revise your revision because I felt that I had read this earlier.

[DoctorM]

There is certainly an ominous feeling here for Falkenberg. Did you revise your revision because I felt that I had read this earlier.

I do go through and randomly revise spelling errors or tighten something up--- I have that whole obsessive thing about fixing spelling flaws ---but no major changes these last few weeks!