“And after Scunlees was gone?”
“Leatherhead turned up the next day. He knows these mountains — he’s been terrorising them for a decade. He stormed the gates, hacked the guards to death and burst in. Within a day he had turned this lovely old fortress into a slaughterhouse, a tavern and a brothel.”
“What’s your view of his men? They’re experienced fighters and I need all I can get.”
“A third of them are worthless scum who’d cut your throat for a pair of boots — ”
“But I dare say they’ll follow if I beat them into line.”
“I dare say they will — if you prove you’re as tough as Leatherhead. And if Garramide is attacked, they’ll fight for it, since they’ve nowhere else to go.” Swelt shook his head. “The rest are recent recruits, men who lost everything when the war began and had no choice. I expect you can make something of them — with the right leadership.”
That word again. “I’m not sure leadership is my strong point.” Rix hadn’t even succeeded with Glynnie. He lowered his head into his hands.
“Then you’d better learn fast. No one else can do it.”
“If I lead, will you follow?”
Swelt snorted. “I loved the old dame I served for thirty years, and she thought highly of you. I’ll do my best for you, Rixium, and so will most of the household, but be warned. You have enemies here, and they’ll do everything they can to bring you down.”
“I grew up in an adder’s nest; I think I can handle — ”
“It’s one thing to know your enemies. It’s entirely another when you can’t tell who’s holding a dagger behind their back.”
“Perhaps even you?” Rix asked with a quirk of an eyebrow.
“You don’t know me either.”
“I wasn’t allowed to manage my inheritance a year ago, but I made proper enquiries about my castellan.”
“Might I ask what they reported?” said Swelt, not entirely hiding his anxiety.
“A gross and greedy man at the dinner table.” Rix met Swelt’s eye. “But honest, and fiercely loyal to Garramide and the old dame.”
“So I am. But I don’t give my loyalty to fools or knaves.”
“And I am?” said Rix.
“More fool than knave, since you ask. We’ll obey your orders, Rixium, because you’re the lord of Garramide and we believe in fighting for our house and our country. But you’ll have to earn our loyalty — and you come with a handicap.”
“The evil reputation of House Ricinus,” said Rix.
“Just so.”
The pain was back, worse than ever. How could any man overcome such a disadvantage?
“On the other hand,” said Swelt, “at a blow you’ve freed us from a vicious tyrant, and the old household thanks you for that. You’ve made a good start — apart from one decision…”
“What’s that?”
“The maidservant you put in charge of the household servants. It was a mistake to raise her above her station. Only anger and resentment can come of it.”
“Glynnie has many fine qualities.”
“I don’t doubt it, and her green eyes and charming smile not the least of them. But the servants will never accept her orders. It’s quite impossible.”
“They accept mine.”
“You’re the heir, and from birth you were trained to command. Glynnie has no right, and it shows. Persist in this decision, Rixium, and you’ll lose far more than you hope to gain from her… whatever that may be.”
CHAPTER 25
“I can see them now,” called Tali. “Five shell racers. Closing in fast.” She jabbed her finger behind the boat and around to port, indicating their positions.
She was on deck, hanging onto a rope, enveloped in her oilskin sea coat and trousers, and wearing rubber-coated boots that came up to her knees. The wind blew icy spray in her face, but the porridge had given her a satisfying feeling of fullness and she felt alive for the first time since leaving Caulderon.
Tali looked forwards, to the scattered floes and the great ice cliffs in the distance, and shuddered. How could one old man, no matter how wily, outwit five shell racers and their combined crew of twenty men?
Holm put up a bigger sail and with the wind behind them his boat was hurtling through the water, rising up each swell then crashing down in fusillades of spray. But the shell racers were faster. In ten or fifteen minutes they would come alongside, and it would be over.
“They’ll try to shoot me,” said Holm, as if he had heard her thoughts. He had lashed the wheel and was standing in the cabin doorway.
“Wouldn’t that send the boat out of control?”
He shook his head. “Wind’s steady behind us. We could sail on for a good while.”
“Have you got a plan?”
“Get among the icebergs before they catch us.”
“How will that help?”
“It’s tricky sailing in there. The winds are constantly shifting and there’ll be broken ice in the water, barely visible. If a shell racer hits a chunk of ice at speed, it goes straight to the bottom.”
“So will we,” said Tali.
“I built this boat. It can take a hell of a lot more than their cockle-shell racers can. And we’re a lot higher in the water. We can see what’s ahead.”
But they’re far more manoeuvrable, she thought. And they can go upwind.
The shell racers were only a few hundred yards behind now, the icebergs about the same distance ahead.
“What are you going to do once we get among them?” said Tali.
“Take advantage of what comes up.”
Frustrating man! “What do you think will come up?”
“How would I know? I didn’t expect this.”
“What did you expect?”
“That we’d sail merrily north, out to sea where the pursuit would never find us, sipping our afternoon tea and reciting odes to the creeping ice.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“Me?” He grinned.
He went inside. Tali watched the shell racers, her heart beating erratically, now racing, now creeping. Two of the racers were heading out to the left, another two to the right, while the fifth continued directly behind them.
“Looks like they’re planning to close around us and attack together,” she said over her shoulder.
“That’s how I’d do it,” said Holm, adjusting the sail and putting up another, smaller one.
It gained them a little more speed, but not enough. Something went whirr-click. She looked around and he was holding a small crossbow.
“Don’t suppose you’ve fired one of these?”
“Oddly enough, the enemy don’t hand them out to their slaves,” said Tali.
“Making jokes now,” said Holm. “You have improved.” He handed her the weapon. “Unlike an ordinary bow, any fool can shoot straight with a crossbow.”
“Any fool?”
“No insult intended, but it takes hundreds of hours of practice to be any good with a true bow.”
He showed her how to work the crank, load the quarrels and use the sights, and made her practise until she could load and crank back the bow in thirty seconds.
“Don’t try anything fancy. Just aim for the middle of the man’s chest.”
“Just like that?”
“It’s him or you, Tali, so yes, just like that. But no further than thirty yards away — if you shoot, you have to hit.”
Clearly, Holm wasn’t planning to sell her to the chancellor, but who he was and what he really wanted was no clearer. Tali sighted on the leading man in the racer behind them, felt an inner squirm, and lowered the crossbow. Could she shoot a man dead, just like that?
Remembering her mother’s murder, and that sickening reliving of her great-great-grandmother’s death, she knew there was no choice. If they caught her, the chancellor would do the same to her. He might do it reluctantly, and perhaps with regret, but nothing would stop him from taking the master pearl that could win the war. Or lose Hightspall forever, if Lyf got it.
The racers were only a hundred yards away when she felt a chilly blast of wind. They were flashing past a white mountain, a cracked and cratered iceberg towering as high as the twisted spire on top of Rix’s tower in Palace Ricinus.