I scowled at her a bit. It had been a long time since I had to tell anyone where I was going. Seeing my expression, Tychis shuffled over until he was between Ciarra and me.
Ciarra bounced down the stairs and hugged him. "Don't worry about that one," she said to Tychis as she pointed at me rudely. "He hasn't raised a hand to me since I lost his favorite hunting knife when I was about your age."
I huffed with indignation. "What she doesn't tell you was that she lost my knife climbing up a tree to see if the eagle in the nest had any hatchlings. Stupid bird almost knocked me out of the tree when I went up to get her—I still have scars from the talons on my back. If she'd bothered to ask, I'd have told her that eagles don't have hatchlings in the winter."
I'd done the right thing by giving her Tychis. He had a place here—and someone to take care of.
"Tychis, go tell Beckram that we found Ward and he'll be up shortly." Ciarra pulled off the wrap she was wearing and tugged my cloak off of him. "Here, take this. It's not as warm, but it won't make you fall down the stairs, either. After you've found Beckram, go sit by a fire until you're toasty."
Tychis bowed correctly and then barreled up the stairs, clutching Ciarra's wrap so it didn't fall on the floor.
"I have to watch him," she said when he was gone. "He's so anxious to please, he won't tell me when he's had enough."
I kissed her forehead. "Thank you. I knew you'd handle him if anyone could."
She smiled and shook her head. "I'll be happy when I convince him that we have every intention of keeping him fed, and all that the hoard of food he's hidden does is attract rats. Oh, that poor boy, Ward. He doesn't talk much, but you can see the life he led 'til now."
Ciarra turned to Axiel and stretched out her hands and caught his. "How lovely to see you again, Axiel."
After the greetings were done, Ciarra turned to me. "Alizon arrived last night on a boat from Cranstone with a small cadre of Oranstonians." She laughed when I groaned. "Serves you right, you old hermit."
Oreg took himself off to sleep. Axiel accompanied Ciarra to check in on the new baby, while I trudged up the stairs toward one of the newly finished rooms next to the library where Alizon was holding court. When I got there, the door was shut and my cousin Beckram was leaning casually against the wall facing Tychis.
I stopped and stood quietly where I was, recognizing the relaxed pose Beckram used to defuse tense situations. One glance at Tychis's defensive stance told me who the tension was coming from.
Beckram saw me, but gave no outward sign; instead he explained obliquely what the trouble was. "So you think I should have let that Oranstonian lord in there yell at you for doing as you were told?"
"I'm a bastard," Tychis said.
"You aren't the only bastard here," replied my cousin. "That's no reason to let a man cut down a boy."
"There are other bastard Hurogs here," Tychis agreed. "I seen 'em. They work in the stables, or fight in the Guard. They don't live in the keep—except maybe for Oreg, and he's a wizard. So what do you want from me?"
"You and I have fourteen brothers and sisters who were not children of my mother," I said.
Tychis didn't start, just moved until he could keep an eye on Beckram and me. I half expected to see tears, but he was just pale. I suppose children who survived the streets learned not to cry.
"I was unable to do much for my family until my father died," I continued. "By then most of them were adults." One by one, I named them off to him and told him what Hurog was doing to help them. Most I'd given money to, several I'd given land. I'd paid for schooling and dowries, for a fishing boat, for arms and a good horse.
"Of them all," I said, "you are the only one I know of who was not born on Hurog. You were abandoned to fight for yourself on the streets for the king to pick up on a whim. My father owed you more than that. Later we'll talk of what you want out of life. But know this, Tychis. As long as I hold Hurog, no blood of my blood will ever stand alone. When you are a man, I expect you to stand up for your family as Beckram has. Now, Ciarra is in her room with Axiel, who is a half-dwarven prince. As a matter of fact, I think he might be a bastard, too. If you are quiet, Ciarra'll get him telling stories for you."
When I waved my hand at him, he dodged past me and escaped down the stairs—Ciarra and Beckram were sharing a room in the lower levels of Hurog that was half full of this season's grain. If I were married, I would have a good reason to find some nook or closet away from everyone, too—instead of being crammed in with a host of other men.
"He doesn't believe you," said Beckram, watching Tychis run down the stairs. "He waited until we were out of the room before he informed me that I shouldn't have defended him in there when old Farrawell snapped at him for interrupting the meeting. He didn't want me to get into trouble."
"He will understand," I said. "Give Ciarra a little time and he'll be strutting around here arrogant as an Avinhellish lord."
The polite social expression Beckram wore gave way to a grin. "She does have that effect on men, doesn't she?"
14—WARDWICK
My father said that if the Oranstonians had liked fighting against the high king half as much as they liked fighting each other, they would have won their rebellion.
Six Oranstonian lords had accompanied Alizon. Farrawell, the one who'd yelled at Tychis, I knew by reputation though not by sight. He was the only one of the Oranstonians I hadn't met, so I had no trouble fitting the name to the man.
Farrawell had accounted himself well in the wake of the Oranstonian Rebellion, surviving not by diplomacy, as with many of the older Oranstonian lords—like, say, Haverness—but because he'd been imprisoned when the Oranstonians broke. I'd heard he was a man of hot temper and little insight. He'd been one of Haverness's Hundred and, like Haverness, had taken the defeat of the Vorsag as a signal that he could stay at his estates—which were vast by any standards.
Beckram's friend Kirkovenal was there, a generation younger than the other Oranstonians. He sat next to Garranon, who wore his usual bland court-face. Only the shadows under his eyes showed the strain of Jakoven's attack.
Danerra, Levenstar, Revenell, and Willettem had all fought in the Rebellion and the Hundred—which was all I knew of them. There was an empty seat between Willettem and Kirkovenal, and Beckram slid into it. I leaned against the wall. If I sat down now, I'd be asleep in five minutes unless someone did something more interesting than talk.
Alizon, when I'd known him at court, had been famed for his outlandish clothes and dyed hair. Today his hair was streaked with gray and cut short in no particular fashion. If I'd walked by him in a market, I wouldn't have recognized him.
Kellen and Rosem were noticeably absent, but my uncle sat on Alizon's right, watching the faces around him intently. Tosten wasn't there, either.
My uncle greeted me with a glance and then launched off into speech with the air of a man repeating something for the twentieth time.
"You say that you want to attack Estian," he said, looking from one Oranstonian face to another. "Which at this point is utterly foolish."
"Fighting in the streets of Estian, where every hand might be against you, will only lose men," agreed Alizon. "We have to pick our target."
"If not Estian, then where?" asked Kirkovenal. "Would the Shavig lords attack Avinhelle? Then we could attack Tallven while Jakoven was concentrating his efforts in the north."