ELEVEN

 

POISON IN HIS VEINS

 

Lorenso heard the steady drumming of hooves change tempo, instantly sensing that something had happened to one of his companions. Reining in his mount, he slowed to see Antano come to a galloping halt beside him.

“Where be Alecsis?” the old magician demanded, peering into the gloom around them.

Antano shook his head. “He was right behind me a moment ago.”

Swinging his mount around, Lorenso cantered back the way they had come. Soon he caught a glimpse of the riderless horse gnawing some grass by the side of the road. Easing his own mount to a walk, he reached out to the other animal, taking hold of her reins. The mare followed obediently.

The black shape of a man lying in the middle of the road wasn’t hard to miss. The cowl had slipped from his head, and the moonlight slanting through the trees shone directly on his pale face, turning his long flowing hair into a shimmering gold mantle.

“Dear Heaven!” Antano gasped, jumping from his horse.

Lorenso also dismounted, and hurried to Alecsis’s side. He placed a trembling hand to the side of his neck, searching for a sign of life. He eventually found it, a pulse so faint that Alecsis would surely die if he didn’t administer those healing potions immediately.

Turning to the young man at his side, he said, “Help me drag him into the bushes. We have to find some flat ground where we will not be seen from the road.”

Stepping around Alecsis, he took hold of one of his limp hands. Antano took the other, and they dragged him into the forest. Trying to shift a man almost twice their weight over rocks and bracken was not easy. Soon they were panting from exertion. By the time they had dragged Alecsis to a spot open and flat enough, both men were lathered in a fine film of perspiration.

“Fetch my healing satchel, and the nightstones. Then see to the horses,” Lorenso commanded, crouching beside the supine man. He looked like death had already claimed him.

Antano scurried off, returning with the items Lorenso requested. He placed a glowing stone on either side of Alecsis. Now able to see what he was doing, he parted the cloak, then began tugging at Alecsis’s clothes, hoisting up his stained blue tunic.

When he saw the extent of the damage, he gasped in horror. Instead of healing, the wound had opened further, and a noxious yellow fluid that reeked of sickness seeped from it. Lorenso marveled that he had made it this far.

Hurriedly he set to work, rubbing a drawing ointment around the red raw wound, knowing it would get worse before it got better. I hope you have the strength to survive what I have to do, he thought.

He started chanting a spell that brought Antano rushing to his side. The youth immediately began worrying an already ravaged fingernail. He listened with rapt attention as Lorenso spoke of drawing the poison from Alecsis’s veins, pulling the evil from his body like unraveling a thread from a garment. The mage’s hands mimicked the action, graceful despite their spotted, gnarled appearance.

Antano watched in horror as the wound buckled and gaped like a second mouth. A horrible black substance that smelled of rotting meat seeped from it. As the goo started to flow from him, Alecsis began to moan and thrash.

“Grab his hands,” Lorenso ordered, sitting on his twitching legs to hold him down.

Antano moved around to Alecsis’s head and clasped his twitching hands. “What is that horrible stuff?” he asked, his face ashen.

“Poison.” Lorenso repeated the chant, drawing a stream of thick black tar from the wound. Alecsis started to tremble violently, and his moans turned into shrieks of agony.

“Oh Sweet Lorin!” Antano gasped, and started to pray, his fear making his teeth chatter. Alecsis had become his dearest friend. Few possessed his strength and courage, and Antano longed to be more like him. “Ye can’t die now, Alecsis,” he murmured. “I need you, and Karina loves you. Don’t let her down.”

Alecsis’s answer was to scream so loudly his pain shuddered right through the young soldier. His grip became like steel traps crushing Antano’s slender fingers, but he hardly noticed it. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the evil bile, now pouring like treacle from the wound. It looked like an oily black serpent snaking its way across his washboard stomach. But it didn’t pool around him in a thick gooey puddle. It vanished as soon as it hit the cape underneath him.

It seemed to flow forever, and Alecsis howled, his back arching like a bow. His head lifted off the ground, and his eyes glared blindly at the sky, two luminous green pools of torment.

“Will it never end?” the terrified youth muttered, as Alecsis shuddered and thrashed like a man the grip of a violent fit.

“‘Tis easing,” Lorenso said, and Antano noticed he was right. “But this doesn’t mean we are out of the woods yet.”

The black bile slowly lessened, becoming nothing more than a few droplets trickling down Alecsis’s pale skin. He collapsed back against the grass, his head lolling to one side. Lorenso chanted the words of expulsion once more, his fingers pulling at an invisible thread. The wound puckered again, and a final rush of poison surged forward, making Alecsis clench Antano’s hands with such sudden ferocity, it was his turn to cry out in pain. Then he became still.

“Is he dead?” Antano asked fearfully.

Lorenso dreading the same thing, felt his pulse beating faintly at the base of his throat. “Nay, but the ordeal has stressed him greatly. What he needs after I close the wound, is rest, something I doubt we have time for... “ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully with one hand, reaching into his satchel with the other. “I wonder if I dare risk casting an invisibility spell over us.” He shook his head. “I do so hate mixing my incantations.”

“Why not wait until we hear something?” Antano suggested. “They probably won’t send anyone after us until morning. That’s still several hours away. Even that much would benefit Alecsis.”

“Ye’re right. Alecsis really saw your worth when he took you under his wing.”

Antano couldn’t help basking in the compliment, knowing the old magician didn’t dole them out lightly. Releasing Alecsis’s now limp hands, he watched as Lorenso applied a different substance to the wound. It looked very similar to that which he had used on it the day Alecsis had sustained the injury, but this ointment had the desired effect. The vicious cut slowly shrunk and closed, leaving nothing but a thin reddish line that would disappear altogether in a few days.

After casting the appropriate healing spell, Lorenso eased down Alecsis’s tunic and covered him with the edges of the cloak. “I think we both should get some rest.”

“Shouldn’t one of us keep watch,” Antano suggested.

“I’ll cast a watchman spell over me. It will alert us to approaching danger.” Finding a spot a few feet away from the slumbering Alecsis, he tucked his pack under his head, and wrapped his cloak around his weary body. But he couldn’t sleep. Even after casting the watchman spell he lay awake, listening to the other men’s slow even breathing, mulling over recent events in his mind.

The immediate past stretched further back in time, and he found himself thinking of his long dead wife. Never believing he would ever meet a woman to love, Lorenso had been almost fifty when he married Sumara, a woman many years his junior. Their marriage had lasted less than twelve months.

Sumara had died giving birth to the brat, Leonado. If the youth hadn’t looked so much like himself, he would have questioned his parentage. Lorenso wondered how he could have spawned something so nasty and spiteful. He certainly never treated the boy badly. He’d tried to be a good father.

And how had the child repaid him? By taking off with his most treasured volumes, those filled with spells no magician should be without. If he didn’t find a successor soon, Scarthe would lose the power to heal and protect against evil. All the great mages were dead. Lorenso was the last of his line.

Oh Alecsis, you should have been the one to take my place. You possess the power to be a great spell-binder, but you intend to marry and leave Scarthe with your princess. Is that what you really want? To live the rest of your life as the master of a distant province, sorting out petty squabbles between farmers? You have so much more to offer. So much more.

 

The chamber was lit by a solitary candle on the window-ledge. Karina stood in front of her guilded mirror, surveying her handiwork in the half-light. She had wound a silken sash around her chest to flatten her breasts, and put on a faded page boy’s tunic and breeches she had stolen from a clothesline in the servants quarters. Her soft leather boots came courtesy of Toran’s chamber. They were a little too large, but she had knotted the laces several times around her ankles. Unfortunately, she still looked like a woman trying to impersonate a boy.

“I need a cape with a cowl,” she asserted, but the only ones she owned were ceremonial robes. Where on earth had Lorenso acquired the ones he gave Alecsis and Antano? She wondered whether she should return to the magician’s chambers and search for one. But Karina didn’t want to risk wandering through the palace again. Neither did she want to take the same route they used to aid their escape.

Hiding behind the curtain to Lorenso’s sleeping quarters, she’d overheard their destination, and only needed to follow the road to Braythe. No doubt they would take the back route. Karina hoped she could find the unmarked tracks in the darkness.

A soft rustling sound made her swing round, her heart knocking loudly against her chest. Her maid, Nira, stood in the doorway between the inner and outer chambers. Clad in her white nightdress, she looked like a ghost come to haunt her, but Karina’s heartbeat subsided to a bearable level. Nira could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.

“I should have known ye’d come up with some harebrained scheme to save yer stone-faced warrior,” Nira admonished, stepping into the room. Few maids would dare speak to their mistresses with such boldness, but Karina and Nira had engaged in this playful banter for years.

“It isn’t harebrained. If ye want the truth, he’s already escaped, and all I’m doing is following him.”

Nira placed her hands on her hips, her teasing tone gone. “On no yer not. Princesses don’t go chasing a condemned man into the night. What ye should really be doing is reporting the escape to yer father.”

Karina stared at her in dismay. “You can’t be serious!”

“He hath committed murder, murder of a prince no less. How could you even think to - ”

But Karina cut her off. “And I thought you had better sense than to listen to such lies and gossip.”

“They aren’t lies and gossip. Yer father condemned Alecsis himself.”

Karina stepped up to her maid, and gripped her by the shoulders. “I believe Alecsis is innocent, and Lorenso knows Uncle Dorban still lives.”

Nira tried to wriggle free, but the princess’s grip tightened, her fingernails digging into her flesh. “Then why not wait for his return? Why risk yer life for the sake of a man who may or may not be innocent?”

“Because he’s ill. He might not make the journey. I swear I’ll kill myself if he dies. I shall impale myself upon The Holy Avenger so my soul will fly straight into Lorin’s arms.”

Nira shook her head, her dark eyes wide with shocked disbelief. “He hath bewitched ye, cast a spell over you. No sane person talks like this.”

“At the moment I don’t feel sane. I’m too worried about Alecsis.” She released her maid. “Now I must be on my way.” But as she made to brush past, Nira gripped her arm.

“If ye plan to go ahead with this madness, then at least let me accompany you.”

Karina was swamped with emotion. Even though Nira didn’t believe in what she was setting out to do, her ever faithful maid would risk her own life to support her. “That’s not a particularly sane notion either,” she couldn’t help retorting.

“And neither is sitting here wondering if I’ll ever see you again. I have ter stop you from jumping on the holy sword. But first, your hair. We need something to cover it. Either that or I cut if off.”

“That’s what I was looking for before ye found me, a cape of some sort.”

Nira turned to hurry from the room. “I have just the thing. Wait here.”

But Karina fell into step beside her. “I’m coming with you. I don’t want you alerting anyone to my plans.”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” she muttered, wishing it were the truth. Nira had never been able to understand what Karina saw in that massive mountain of muscles.

After a particularly embarrassing incident in the stables she’d taken an intense dislike to him. Catching her in the arms of one of the stable-hands - she couldn’t remember which one - he had carried her like a bucket of rotten swill through the building. As if that hadn’t been bad enough, he chastised her in front of a group of servants gathered outside.

For weeks she’d stewed and simmered like an overheated oven. Everybody did it, she thought crossly. Why did he think it such a crime? She eventually found out why. He couldn’t cope with other people’s amours because he didn’t get any himself. No maid was brave enough to go near him.

After that she didn’t feel quite so bad, but ensured increased discretion whenever she met her lovers. And she made sure she never crossed Sir Alecsis’s path again. Easier said than done when her mistress talked about him incessantly. Nira had never seen a smile cross Sir Alecsis’s chiseled features, never witnessed a gentle look, and yet Karina swore he possessed such kindness she couldn’t wait to marry him.

Give me a slender, dark-skinned groom any time, Nira thought. The only one she hadn’t tried was the barbarian’s handsome young friend. Despite his bizarre desire to copy his master by letting his hair grow, Antano had turned into a very attractive young man.

“Yer don’t suppose Antano be in on the escape plan?” she couldn’t help asking, knowing the youth worshiped the ground Sir Alecsis walked on.

Karina nodded as they made their way into the outer chamber, and Nira allowed herself a small smile. So their journey wouldn’t be in vain, after all. “Anyone else?” she prompted.

“Lorenso,” Karina answered absently.

“That cantankerous old goat! Heaven help them! They say he hasna ventured past the castle walls since his wife died. I wonder if he even remembers how ta ride a horse - ”

“So where do we acquire these garments?” Karina interrupted. “If you wish to accompany me, ye need to find some men’s clothes.”

“Have no fear. I’ve pretended to be a boy afore. How else do ye suppose I get into the men’s quarters and the stables?”

“You harlot!” Karina teased, watching as Nira pulled a knee-length gray tunic from the chest at the foot of her bed. Donning a pair of matching breeches, she slipped on a pair of boy’s boots. Then she lifted a gray cloak from the trunk.

“I usually wear this, but I think ye be more in need of it.” She passed it to Karina, who slipped it over her shoulders.

“What about your hair?”

Nira’s answer was to tie it back with a thin leather band, and tuck it into the back of her tunic. Karina had to admit she could pass for a youth standing on the threshold of manhood. “Now for some protection,” the maid asserted. Rummaging through the trunk again, she retrieved a short sheathed dagger.

Karina returned to her night-stand and scooped up her own weapon, a knife with a gold hilt and matching sheath. She stuck it into her belt, its obvious value clashing with her drab brown outfit. “I’m glad ye reminded me.”

The woman gave each other one final perusal, checking for stray hairs and other obvious signs of femininity. Finding none, they set off, hurrying silently down the passage to the staircase that led to the ground floor.

Once they were on the winding staircase, Nira asked, “How have ye planned to get a mount without anyone seeing you?”

“By sneaking past the stable guards. I know of a back entrance.”

“It may work,” Nira mused. “But what of the guards at the gates? They’ll want to know why someone wants to leave the palace grounds in the middle of the night.”

“I shall tell them that my mother has taken gravely ill. The guard changes at three. It’s almost that. I’ll tell them that my sister came to the gate half an hour ago and told the last watch to fetch me.” She glanced sideways at Nira, adding. “And my brother.”

So her mistress had thought out a plan, and wasn’t blundering headlong into danger. “I can see naught wrong with that reasoning. But let me deal with the stable-hands. I sincerely doubt we’ll be able to whisk away two horses from right under their noses. I be good friends with Duscan. He owes me a favour or two.”

Aware that they had stopped, Karina nodded in agreement, and urged her maid forward. They descended the rest of the stairs and stepped into the main hall. They had no choice but traverse it, and use the double entrance doors to get out of the keep. Darting between the oil lamps still alight, they hurried across the tiled floor.

Karina took hold of the latch, carefully lifting it, knowing it had a habit of squeaking about half way up. Holding it in place, she pushed the door ajar. But she had forgotten that it also squeaked as it opened. “Quickly!” she hissed, not daring to swing the door open any wider.

Nira scurried through, Karina close behind. She eased it shut, but it still managed to clang loudly enough to make both women flinch. In the morning somebody would wonder why the door had been left unlocked, no doubt resulting in a mad rush to find out if an intruder had entered the castle. But Karina suspected that their minds would be too occupied with Alecsis’s escape.

Outside, the night had become cool enough for Karina to pull her cape close. Ensuring her cowl covered most of her face, she followed Nira down the main stairs, and across the dew-covered grass towards the stables.

After the clean, crisp air of the night, the strong stench of horses made her bring a hand to cover her nose. Peering into the gloom, she followed the shadowy figure of her maid. Nira seemed to know exactly where to find Duscan. He lay curled up on a mattress of straw and hay in one of the cubicles in the stable-hands quarters.

Nira swept aside the heavy curtain cordoning off his cubicle and slipped inside. Urging Karina to stay back, she stepped up to the sleeping man, and shook his shoulder. He growled, burrowing deeper into his blankets. Nira shook him again.

“What is it?” he grumbled, slowly sitting up. His rough woolen blanket slipped from his shoulders, revealing a slim, sweat-slicked body. “Nira!” he gasped, on recognizing the intruder. “You want it now?” And then his gaze fell on Karina. “What’s going on?”

“My brother and I need yer help,” she whispered, motioning in Karina’s direction.

“I didna know ye had a brother,” Duscan remarked, now fully alert. He reached for a faded shirt hanging from a nail on the other side of the cubicle, and slipped it on.

“There are many things ye don’t know about me, Duscan. Our mother has fallen gravely ill - ”

“I didn’t know ye had a mother either,” he went on.

“Will yer shut up and listen? We need mounts. We have to see her in case ‘tis fatal.” She smiled sweetly at him, her hand going out to caress his arm. “If ye do this for me, ye will find me climbing under yer covers in the middle of the night.”

Even in the dim light, Karina saw his white teeth flash licentiously. She felt an uncomfortable shudder pass though her. How could people do this without love? she wondered. Alecsis had never looked at her with such wickedness. His gaze had always been tender and shy.

Slipping on a pair of breeches, Duscan jumped from the bed. “Then mounts ye shall have. How ‘bout a prelude before ye go?” he suggested, flashing her that wicked grin again.

Nira held up a hand to stop his advance. “Not in front of me brother. Can’t ye see how concerned he is ‘bout our mother, how concerned I am?”

Duscan glanced at Karina. “Can’t see much of him at all. But if ‘tis for your ailing ma, then I best wait for me reward.” He stepped towards Karina, and she retreated from the doorway, allowing him to enter the main body of the stable. Grateful that he hadn’t tried to take a closer look at her, she followed him to a nearby stall. “Will Bella do?” he asked, motioning to a sleekly brushed brown mare with a white patch above her eyes.

“She looks fine to me,” Nira answered for her. “Since when did the king ever breed a second rate horse? Now show me mine.”

Leaving Karina to open the stall, they headed to one several doors along. Glad to see things flowing so smoothly, the princess lead Bella out. Stepping back, and urging the mare towards the main doors, she bumped into something soft, but unyielding.

With a gasp, she swung round. In front of her stood a short, rotund man, with a rodent-like face. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. On no, she thought in dismay, recognition dawning. It’s Anpree, the stable-master.

Duscan appeared at her side, leading a gray mare. “These lads need’ta see their ailing ma. ‘Tis urgent and can’t wait till morning.”

Oh, thank you, Duscan, Nira thought. You shall get more than one midnight visit for this. Unfortunately Anpree did not step aside to let them past.

“Why didn’t ye come and see me ‘bout it first?” the surly stable-master demanded. “They might be stealing them from under our noses. I don’t like tha look of ‘em, particularly this one, hiding so guiltily under his cowl.” Lifting a burly arm, he swept the covering from Karina’s head. Her startled look of dismay must have softened something within him, for her stopped to peer into her face. “Yer mother is ill, you say?”

Karina nodded solemnly, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t recognize her.

“No-one can fake that kinda concern. The lad’s shaking in ‘is boots,” he said, finally turning away from her. “Okay, saddle the horses for ‘em. But I want ‘em back afore nightfall, or me men’ll come out looking for yer. Exactly where are ye taking ‘em?”

“To the Ingot farm. Our father’s a farmhand there,” Nira improvised.

“Right’o.” Anpree waved them off, and then turned to Duscan. “In future, I want ta be informed of unauthorized use of the horses. Is that understood?”

“Yessir,” Duscan muttered meekly, and followed the two women to the saddlery.

Mounted and out of the stables, Nira leant towards Karina. “Now we only have to get past the guards as the gate.”

Once Nira had explained their destination, and that Anpree himself had agreed on the use of the mounts, they were waved through the barbican, the great iron gate rising ahead of them. In times of peace, the drawbridge stayed down, and they rode their horses across it at a quick canter.

They woke the guards stationed outside. Out of the corner of her eye, Karina saw them scramble guiltily to their feet. Once they reached the town, they spurred their horses into a gallop, their hooves on the cobblestones echoing up and down the sleeping valley.

They rode until it grew light, Karina having no trouble finding the seldom used back route. When the sun reached tentative fingers across the sky, the two women dismounted and led their horses into the undergrowth. Stepping cautiously into the vegetation, they heard the unmistakable sound of running water. The soothing babbling of a nearby creek soon lulled them to sleep.

The drumming hooves of King Rostan’s troops scouting the area failed to rouse them. Neither did they hear their cursing obscenities on their return journey.

What did rouse them was the sound of a man singing an alien song in a tongue Karina did not understand. For a moment she lay there, soothed by the deep, seductive tones. But then she saw reason, remembering with a start where she was.

Scrambling out of her cloak which had acted as bedding during the night, she sat up and glanced around. The sun hovered in the western sky, the heat of the day already fading from the air. She felt hot, sticky and hungry.

Turning towards the sound, she saw Nira hunkered down on the edge of the slope, and realized the singing was coming from the creek. On hearing Karina moving about, Nira turned and motioned her over. Crawling on all fours towards her maid, she followed Nira’s gaze, her eyes growing wide in astonishment.