Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) Read online

  Not everyone was fleeing. Jilseth watched, dry-mouthed, as a double handful of men and boys drew up into a ragged line, armed with knives and swords. Even in the uncertain moonlight they looked Aldabreshin in features and complexion despite their mainland clothing. Were they Archipelagan born living in Relshaz or some of the many born of mixed blood? Did that matter?

  ‘This will be a slaughter.’ She turned to the other magewomen. ‘We could keep them apart—’

  ‘No,’ Mellitha said bleakly. ‘Using magic against the Watch will turn the whole Magistracy against wizardry.’

  ‘Those Aldabreshi won’t thank you for your help.’ Velindre was equally sombre. ‘They’ll only seek to kill you more quickly to cleanse themselves of magic’s stain with your blood.’

  Jilseth felt sick to her stomach as she saw the Watch sergeant gesture with his halberd, warning off some stragglers caught between the urge to run for safety and a callous desire to see what happened next.

  One of the belligerents hurled a knife. It struck a Watchman in the neck. The blade fell away, leaving the man unharmed thanks to his steel gorget. The Watch contingent levelled their polearms and charged.

  A bearded man in a long tunic died skewered on a halberd’s point. A boy tried to attack the Watchman wielding it. The Watchman pulled his weapon free to rip open the boy’s belly with a scything stroke.

  One man had retreated to wrap a cloak around his off-hand, a curved Aldabreshi sword in the other. As a Watchman approached, he darted forward to get inside the polearm’s reach. He hacked at the Watchman’s foremost wrist while looking to tangle the halberd’s deadly blade in the cloak.

  The Watchman stepped adroitly aside. Swiftly flipping his weapon end to end put the blade beyond reach of the smothering cloth. The same movement smashed his assailant’s sword arm with the iron-shod foot. The man dropped to his knees. The Watchman spun his halberd again. This time the killing blade hacked his assailant’s head from his shoulders. Blood soared into the air, glittering in the moonlight.

  Another swordsman thrust at a Watchman. The armoured man used the flat of his halberd’s blade to force the sword down to the broken earth and cobbles. As the attacker stumbled forward, the Watchman swept his blade up the sword and into the man’s undefended face.

  Jilseth longed to block her ears with magic to silence the screams. She wanted to look away from Mellitha’s scrying. But she would have to bear witness to this slaughter for Planir. She wondered what the Archmage would do if he was here. Were he and Merenel watching this carnage through a scrying wrought in Hadrumal?

  Mellitha heaved a sigh. ‘That’s over at least.’

  The last defiant attacker threw down his knife as his remaining allies took to their heels. Half the Watchmen pursued them while the rest subdued those few who’d surrendered with brutal blows.

  ‘What will happen to them?’ Jilseth wondered aloud.

  ‘They’ll be thrown in the Magistracy’s lock-up until they’re sold as slaves,’ Velindre said sourly. ‘This night’s work may weigh in their favour. Some Aldabreshi will want to own men who’ve fought so bravely against wizardry.’

  A fist hammered on the gate outside, a courteous yet uncompromising voice shouting. ‘Madam Esterlin. Open for the Magistracy, if you please.’

  Mellitha let the extraordinary scrying dissolve into a cloud of mist and gestured. The gate swung open. ‘Yes?’

  The Watch sergeant bowed low, though Jilseth noted his eyes scanning the gardens, the stables and the house. The men behind him gaped more openly at Mellitha’s opulent residence.

  The sergeant produced a twice-folded and thrice-sealed letter from a pouch at his belt. ‘This is for you.’

  Mellitha took it and examined the seals. ‘From the Magistracy, no less.’

  Velindre stepped forward to question the sergeant. ‘Has there been much trouble in the city tonight?’

  ‘For the mageborn? Yes.’

  Jilseth was about to ask what he meant when Mellitha set the parchment in her hand ablaze with scarlet magefire.

  Even Velindre was taken aback. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I am ordered to leave the city.’ Mellitha clenched her fist around the blood-red flames. ‘For the sake of continued good order.’

  ‘I am ordered to defend your property until circumstances permit your return.’

  The sergeant took an involuntary step backwards as Mellitha glared at him.

  ‘Really? And what are your orders if I choose not to leave?’

  The man squared his shoulders. ‘To leave you and your property unguarded.’

  Jilseth recalled Velindre’s warning that even mundane mainlanders knew that any wizard’s strength must eventually fail.

  The blonde magewoman snapped imperious fingers to demand the sergeant’s attention. ‘How long do we have to arrange our affairs?’

  ‘I am to be gone before dawn.’ Mellitha’s voice broke somewhere between grief and anger.

  ‘Then guard those gates while we make ready to depart.’ Velindre narrowed her eyes ominously at the sergeant.

  He bowed again, even lower. ‘Madam Mage.’

  As the sergeant and his men retreated, Mellitha gestured. The gates slammed closed and she rounded on Velindre, incredulity outweighing her anger.

  ‘You think I will abandon my home to be looted by the Magistracy’s lackeys? That I will turn my household onto the streets to face that mob unprotected? Shall we abandon Kerrit to their mercies as well?’

  ‘Master Kerrit is dead.’ Jilseth hadn’t meant to break the grievous news so bluntly but Mellitha’s attack startled her into the truth.

  ‘He—’ The older magewoman stared at her, appalled. ‘But the priest—?’

  ‘There was nothing his lore could do.’ Jilseth’s eyes stung with painful recollection. ‘Temple guards are watching Kerrit’s house though. That should keep his property safe.’

  ‘There is nothing more we can do here,’ Velindre said forcefully. ‘Do you intend to set the whole of the Magistracy against Hadrumal?’

  The echo of Mellitha’s earlier words hung in the silence between them.

  ‘Very well.’ She began walking towards the house.

  Jilseth found this abrupt calmness more unnerving than Mellitha’s earlier fury. She followed Velindre up the steps and onto the threshold. A handful of young men, as handsome as the magewoman’s hirelings invariably were, stood in the hallway with an equal number of women ranging from a fresh-faced girl twisting nervous hands to a stolid female of Mellitha’s own age perfumed with the lingering savour of kitchen spices.

  ‘I’m sorry beyond words that this festival has become a nightmare for our household,’ Mellitha said crisply. ‘I wish that we could wake from an evil dream prompted by too much white brandy. Alas, that will not happen and now we have been forsaken by the Magistracy.’

  The magewoman drew a breath, visibly struggling to rein in her temper.

  ‘I have a duty to keep you all safe and that means I must take you to Hadrumal. I will see that you go wherever you wish after that but I cannot allow you to risk trying to cross the city tonight. Please gather up your most precious belongings. Please make haste.’

  Jilseth watched the silent servants scurry away before raising a hand to request Velindre’s attention. ‘Will we take them with us in a collective spell or individually one by one? Where will we take them?’

  ‘We’ll go to the sundial courtyard in Wellery’s Hall.’ Mellitha said decisively. ‘Rafrid and I have long been friends.’

  ‘What do you want to take with you?’ Velindre glanced around the hallway and through the open door into the long room overlooking the garden.

  ‘What should I take?’ Mellitha raised her finely shaped brows. ‘My sitting room furniture? Gowns from my dressing chamber? Why should I want any reminders of everything which I cannot salvage? What of my happy memories of raising my children here? My impeccable reputation among Relshaz’s merchants, both as a most discerning customer and their t
ruest confidante concerning their taxes?’

  She bit her lip and turned away, only to stop short. ‘My horses. They must be taken to the Watch stables. Tanilo is spending the festival with his family. He can collect them—’

  ‘I’ll tell the sergeant.’ Velindre vanished to reappear by the gates, hauling them open with sapphire magic before giving the Watchman his orders with forceful gestures.

  ‘We can get a message to Tanilo once we’re in Hadrumal.’ Jilseth hated to think of the magewoman’s faithful coachman not knowing that his mistress and the other servants were safe. That he might already have heard of this uproar and been caught up in the mayhem outside didn’t bear contemplating.

  ‘Madam.’ Nishail struggled into the hallway dragging a heavy chest. ‘Your jewels.’

  For one appalling moment, Jilseth thought Mellitha would lash out at the boy. Instead the magewoman smiled at him with apparent gratitude.

  ‘Do put that down before you suffer a rupture.’ She clapped her hands as the other servants returned. ‘Everyone stand in a circle.’

  The servants meekly piled their belongings around the chest and ringed it, linking hands. They looked at Mellitha with unfailing trust.

  ‘I will lead the spell.’ Velindre reappeared on the far side.

  Jilseth felt the chill of elemental air pass behind her back. She caught a swirling wisp and braided her own grasp on such wizardry into it. Now she was bound to Velindre’s magecraft. She felt Mellitha do the same. A rush of fire swiftly followed the azure breeze and then Jilseth felt the smoothness of Mellitha’s wizardry coursing towards her. Binding her own understanding of water into the spell she channelled the blended elements onwards to Velindre.

  She followed the flow of water with her own magecraft, reaching out with her affinity to the distant stones of Hadrumal’s towers. Quarried from the wizard isle’s own hills, they shared their essence with the minerals in her own bones, island born as she was. Jilseth felt Velindre take firm hold of the interwoven magic and was momentarily surprised to realise how evenly their wizardry was now matched in their respective disciplines.

  Threads of magic only visible to mage senses shifted into a rainbow haze. Magelight visible to all bleached the mist to purest white.

  ‘Now.’ Velindre’s wizardry coursed through the spell like lightning through storm clouds.

  In the next instant, Jilseth felt the familiar stones of Hadrumal beneath her grateful feet.

  ‘What—?’ A startled wizard’s exclamation echoed around the dark quadrangle.

  ‘Where—?’ Mellitha’s cook quavered between relief and apprehension.

  Jilseth sought to reassure her. ‘You’re safe in the wizard city.’

  The cool whiteness faded to reveal the courtyard in Wellery’s Hall with the ancient sundial at its centre.

  ‘Jilseth!’ Canfor strode forward. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  He was the last mage she wanted to see. Canfor seemed to treat the strength which he’d gained from Planir’s fourfold nexus as no more than his due. Several mages had told Jilseth that he confidently expected to be offered the next Council seat to become available.

  ‘Where is Cloud Master Rafrid?’ Jilseth looked towards Wellery’s tower and was relieved to see lamplight in the windows.

  Now Canfor had seen Mellitha. ‘Would you care to explain this precipitate arrival, Madam Mage?’

  ‘A little respect for Madam Esterlin, if you please,’ Velindre snapped.

  Mellitha ignored them both, surveying the courtyard. Curtains were being pulled back from windows as shutters were thrust open, querulous voices demanding answers.

  ‘Hadrumal,’ she muttered with loathing.

  Jilseth wondered if she would learn why the magewoman disliked the wizard city so. She certainly didn’t think that Mellitha would stay here any longer than she must. Where would she go?

  She wondered if the magewoman would consider visiting Halferan. Lady Zurenne and most particularly young Lady Ilysh would surely find Mellitha a fine example of a woman commanding authority and respect on equal terms with any man.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Halferan Manor, Caladhria

  5th of Aft-Winter

  ‘MY LADY?’ HOSH rapped on the jamb, although the door was securely wedged open. Zurenne didn’t want anyone thinking that she was appropriating the baronial audience room in its rightful master’s absence.

  So many people sought her advice though. Using this larger chamber on the tower’s ground floor with its anteroom opening from the hallway was far more sensible than having them tramp up the stairs to her sitting room and crowd the landing.It wasn’t as if she was encroaching on the muniment room securely locked behind her.

  Hosh proffered a closely folded and securely sealed parchment. ‘A letter—’

  ‘From Corrain?’ Ilysh hastily corrected herself. ‘From the Baron?’

  ‘Mama?’ Esnina looked up hopefully from her copybook on the opposite side of the table beyond a branch of flickering candles. This was a dark chamber on dull winter days, with every wall fitted with oak shelves. Most were empty as yet, waiting expectantly for generations of bound and rolled parchments which would renew the manor’s archive while the barony’s ledgers and sealed, oath-bound agreements were further safeguarded in the muniment room’s locked chests.

  ‘The baron would send a courier dove.’ Unless, Zurenne realised, the last birds which Reven was tending had succumbed to wet or cold. But any rider from Duryea would still have had to set out before the parliament opened to arrive back here so soon. Whatever news such a letter brought would already have been overtaken by the messages which the doves had carried.

  Hosh handed the letter over. ‘A rider from Licanin brought this. He says it’s urgent news.’

  The boy’s hand momentarily shielded the disfigured side of his face. Zurenne had noticed him do that before, though Hosh seemed unaware of the gesture.

  ‘For my husband?’ Ilysh glanced towards the coffer on a side table where Zurenne had stowed the few letters addressed to the Baron Halferan which had arrived in Corrain’s absence. While she had accepted her mother’s decree that such missives must remain unread, she had done so with marked ill-grace.

  ‘It’s addressed to me.’ Zurenne was momentarily surprised until she recognised her sister Beresa’s personal seal. ‘It’s from your aunt, Lady Licanin.’

  Who would have calculated her own husband’s journey back from Duryea, over four-fifths of Caladhria’s length. Beresa would know equally well that Corrain must still be at least a double handful of days ride away from Halferan. What news was so pressing that it couldn’t wait for either baron to reach home?

  ‘Has her man accepted a bed for the night?’ Zurenne snapped the wax seals and unfolded the stiff parchment. ‘Has he been asked to await my reply?’

  It was barely mid-afternoon so there was always the possibility that the rider would wish to make the most of the remaining daylight.

  She sat down to decipher her sister’s message. For such tidy looking script, Lady Licanin’s handwriting could be remarkably challenging to read. Her style was also politely remote. There was a full generation between Zurenne and Beresa; the oldest of her sisters, she had married Lord Licanin when Zurenne was younger than Neeny.

  ‘Is it news of Baron Karpis?’ Ilysh demanded.

  The girl knew that the villain still coveted Halferan and moreover that Corrain had written to Lord Licanin ten days into For-Winter. Ilysh had been studying the manor’s ledgers with Zurenne when Corrain had come to inform her that he had sought the older man’s advice. He had been as perturbed as Zurenne by the letter she had received from Lady Diress, Baron Karpis’s wife, mentioning that their neighbouring lord had no intention of travelling to Duryea for the solstice parliament.

  Did Beresa have some reason to suspect that Baron Karpis was looking greedily across his borders towards Halferan again? Had he heard those rumours of corsair gold hidden in the manor’s strong rooms wh
ich Corrain’s courier dove message had relayed? Zurenne searched her sister’s closely written missive for any such warning.

  ‘Licanin’s man says that he’ll be grateful for dinner and a bed along with a night’s rest for his horse.’ Hosh couldn’t hide his curiosity any better than Neeny. ‘He’s in no great hurry to return.’

  ‘Lady Licanin writes of trouble in Relshaz during the festival.’ Zurenne wondered what had actually happened as she tried to read between the lines of Beresa’s vague and ominous account. ‘Most particularly for the mages who live in the city.’

  ‘Does she mention Madam Velindre?’ Ilysh glanced at Hosh.

  Zurenne had already noticed the boy stiffen. She still wondered what the daunting blonde magewoman had asked him when she had come to the manor with Jilseth during the last autumn solstice festival.

  More than once she had bitten back questions about that ancient silver-gilt arm-ring Hosh had brought back from the Archipelago. Its magic had saved him from death amid the destruction of the corsair isle, after all. Each time Zurenne reminded herself that the poor boy would surely be as reluctant as Corrain to discuss his suffering amid the Aldabreshi, still less the horrors of captivity by the Mandarkin mage Anskal.

  Besides, the arm-ring was gone. Hosh had been more than willing to hand it over to Velindre. More than that, wizardly affairs were no longer any of Halferan’s concern, not now that Corrain and his fellow lords had secured the parliament’s new law.

  At least, that’s what Zurenne had told herself. Beresa’s letter suggested that the aftermath of the corsairs’ defeat was still unfolding elsewhere.

  ‘She says that the trouble started when a wizard died on Souls’ Ease Night. He was a long-time resident of Relshaz who had been ailing since last year. He finally succumbed to injuries which he had suffered when he was attacked by some Aldabreshi after news of magic loose in the Archipelago reached the city last year.’