“The young men at the Sound grow lazy, my lord. Given to drunkenness and brawling. The bow brings focus to a man’s gaze, trains the body and the mind, gives him the skill to feed his family, and pride in having done so. Deer are plentiful in our woods but few possess the skill to hunt them, save with a crossbow,” he added with a disdainful curl to his lip. “I will tutor the lads in the bow, so that they may know the skills of their fathers.”
“Along with a monthly stipend from me into the bargain?” the Fief Lord asked.
Antesh shook his head. “We ask for no payment, my lord. We will craft our own bows and shafts. We merely seek leave to form a company and practise freely. “
“And should I require the service of this company in time of war?”
Antesh hesitated and Reva saw he had anticipated, but dreaded, this question. The tone of his answer had a certain heaviness to it. “We will be yours to command, my lord.”
The Fief Lord’s gaze became distant with remembrance. “As a boy I was good with bow, better than my brother in fact. Hard to believe I could best him at anything, I know. Had I not been . . . distracted by life, perhaps I’d have muscles like you, eh, Captain?”
The archer replied quickly, neatly side-stepping the opportunity for transgression. “If my lord would care to pick up the bow again, I’d happily teach him.”
Mustor laughed a little. “A man who hits the mark with words as well as arrows.” He turned to the scribes, raising his voice. “The Fief Lord of Cumbrael hereby grants the men of Tear Head Sound leave to convene a company of archers under the captaincy of”—he fumbled, waving a hand at the archer—“Master Antesh here, for a term of one year.” He turned his gaze back to Antesh. “After that we’ll see.”
The archer bowed. “My thanks, my lord.”
The Fief Lord nodded and rose to his feet, looking expectantly at Lady Veliss. “Lunch?”
◆ ◆ ◆
Servants brought trestle tables and benches into the hall, soon laden with bread, chicken, cheese and bowls of steaming soup. As the vendor had said, the fare was simple but hearty, the petitioners falling to the meal with enthusiasm. The Fief Lord and Lady Veliss retired to enjoy a private meal and Reva found herself seated next to the sturdy old woman from the line. Her case had been heard, a claim against her former employer for unpaid wages, but she stayed for the food.
“Sewed dresses for that ungrateful bitch for near ten years I did,” she said around a mouthful of chicken. “Wore my fingers to nubs. One day she says she’s had enough of my waspish tongue and sends me packing. Well, the lord’s strumpet’ll see to her, all right.”
Reva nodded politely as the woman ranted on, eating a small portion of food and watching the servants come and go, mostly via a large door in the east wall. They were an efficient lot, moving with brisk purpose and little talk, causing Reva to suspect the Lady Veliss had small tolerance for lazy servants, which meant she was likely to know them all, if not by name, certainly by sight.
She waited a short while before asking a passing servant girl the way to the privy, being pointed to a smaller door in the western wall. She found the stalls empty and quickly went about her change of garb, removing the skirt and turning it inside out, pulling her hair into a tight tail before tying the blue scarf in place. Deception is a matter of expectation, the priest had told her once. People do not question what they expect to see. Only the unusual draws the eye. People expected a serving girl in this house to move quickly and speak little, and so she did, emerging from the privy with an unhesitant stride, going to the table to lift some empty plates and taking them to the eastern door. She was gratified by the fact that the old woman didn’t even glance up from her plate as she passed by.
She stood aside as other servants exited the door, thankfully too intent on their own tasks to afford her any attention. The door led to a long corridor ending in a flight of steps which she judged led down to the kitchens. The numerous voices echoing up the stairwell made her discount any notion of trying to secure herself a knife just yet. She placed the plates on a nearby windowsill and went looking for a hiding place. Only one door in the corridor walls was unlocked, opening into a cupboard holding nothing more exciting than a collection of mops and brooms. However, fortune had also provided a large wicker basket piled high with laundry. A few moments squirming and she was safely concealed beneath the mound of mingled bedclothes and garments. Discovery seemed a faint possibility, since with so much clearing up to do after the petitioners had left, any laundry duties would probably be left for the morrow. With little else to occupy her, she went to sleep.
◆ ◆ ◆
She awoke to the soft impact of more laundry being piled on top of the concealing mound, hearing a muffled exchange of tired voices, cutting off as the door closed. She balled her fists and started counting, stopped at a hundred and started again, extending a finger every time she began a new count. When all ten digits were extended she balled her fists once more and forced herself to repeat the process three more times, only then did she push her way out of the laundry basket, groping for the door in the pitch-darkness. She opened it a crack and peered out onto the dimly lit corridor. Nothing, no footsteps, no voices. The house was at rest.
She divested herself of the heavy double-skirt, having worn her trews underneath the whole time, then crept out into the corridor, ears straining, still hearing nothing. Satisfied, she rose and made for the stairway. The kitchens were large and empty, the only sound coming from a few steaming stock-pots left on the long iron range. Her eyes soon picked out the gleam of metal next to the chopping block. The knives were neatly laid out on the table, offering a wide choice, from large broad-bladed cleavers to needlelike skewers. She chose a plain butcher’s knife with a six-inch blade and good balance to the handle, pushing it into the leather strap she had tied to her ankle before donning the skirts.
As she expected, the kitchens led to another stairway which she hoped would provide access to the Fief Lord’s private chambers, where he was sure to keep any items of value. She climbed the stairs with slow, softly placed steps, careful not to raise the slightest noise. The first room she came to held a long dining table, polished surface dark and gleaming in the light from the oil lamps, the walls covered with tapestries and paintings, mostly portraits. She annoyed herself by allowing her eyes to linger on the faces gazing out from the canvases, searching once more for echoes of her own features, but finding only the distinctive jawline and broad nose that characterised her uncle’s visage.
The dining room adjoined a library, three high walls of book-laden shelves. In the centre of the room sat a writing desk where a book lay open, the silk ribbon trailing across the centre of the page, a few handwritten sheets of parchment next to it. Reva paused as she passed, turning the book to read the title on the cover; Of Nations and Wealth by Dendrish Hendrahl. The writing on the sheets was precise, scribed by a tutored hand. The price of wine defines this fief, she read. Its wealth therefore derives from the vine. The most important man in the fief? Is it the man who owns the vine or the man who picks the grapes?
Reva returned the book to its previous state and moved on, finding another stairwell at the far end of the library. The sight of the room on the next floor up provoked a sudden leap in her heart. Swords!
The room was windowless, lit by a candelabrum hanging from the ceiling, the light from the numerous tiered rows of lamps playing on the swords that covered all four walls. The floor was wooden and springy underfoot as she ventured further, drawn to the nearest sword, a plain but well-made blade of the Asraelin pattern, as were most of its brothers. They were each held in place by iron brackets and easily lifted. Reva’s gaze was drawn to the white plaster above the sword racks, finding it decorated with faded but readable paintings, men frozen in the lunge or the parry. This, she realised, was a room for sword practice. Her father must have learned his skills in this room. What better place for his brother to keep it?
Her eyes roved the walls, seeing more and more Asraelin blades, here and there an archaic long sword or a poniard, but none that matched Al Sorna’s description or the example the smith had shown her . . . Wait!
It hung in the centre of the far wall, a twin to the sword in the smith’s shop, except . . . the handle was finely made and bore an engraved silver emblem; a drawn bow ringed in oak leaves, the crest of the House of Mustor. Can it be? Her fingers played over the handle, her eyes noting the uneven edge of the blade and the scratches on its surface. This sword had seen use, this sword had been carried to war. Perhaps her uncle had the handle made when he brought it back from the High Keep, finding some vestige of decency to honour his fallen brother.
This is it! she decided, grasping the handle and lifting the sword from its bracket. It has to be.
She closed her eyes, held it close, the blade cold against the skin of her forearms, fighting the hammer of her heart. At last . . .
She exhaled slowly, calming herself. Success would only come when she and Arken were free of this city. She would return to her cupboard and wait for the morning, conceal the sword in a basket of laundry and leave via the front gate under the gaze of the guards.
She returned to the stairwell, casting a brief glance upwards . . . and saw a hand. It jutted from behind the corner, lying on the stone ten steps up. It was small, skin smooth and youthful though speckled with blood, the fingers slender but unmoving.