He knew that they had beached somewhere south of the Habrir river; technically they were in Hebrion, the river marking the border between the kingdom and its attached duchy. This was a desolate portion of Abeleyn’s dominions though, an extensive marshland which reached far inland and was crossed by only one or two causeway-raised Royal roads. There would be villages within a day’s march, but no town of any significance for fifteen leagues—and that the city of Pontifidad, back to the north-east. Abrusio was over fifty leagues away, and to get to it overland they would have to cross the lower passes of the Hebros, where the mountains that were the backbone of Hebrion plunged precipitously into the sea.
A swoop of wings, and he turned to find Golophin’s gyrfalcon perched on a thick reed behind him.
“Where have you been?” he asked shortly.
“The bird or I, sire? The bird has been resting, and well-earned the rest has been. I have been busy, though.”
“Well?”
“Rovero and Mercado are ours, thank the Blessed Saints.”
Abeleyn muttered a quiet prayer of thanks himself. “Then I can do it.”
“Yes. There are other ramifications, though—”
“Talking to birds again, sire?” a woman’s voice said. Golophin’s familiar took off at once, leaving a barred feather circling in the air behind it.
The lady Jemilla was dressed in a long, fur-trimmed mantle of wool the colour of a cooling ember. She had let her thick mane of ebony hair tumble down about her face, emphasizing the paleness of her skin, and her lips were rouged. Of her pregnancy, some three months gone, there was as yet no visible sign.
Abeleyn’s temper flickered a moment, but he mastered it. “You look well, lady.”
“Last time you saw me, sire, I was prostrate, retching and green in the face. I should hope that I look well now, by contrast if nothing else.” She came closer.
“I trust my men have made you comfortable?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, smiling. “They are such gallants at heart, your soldiers. They have built me a lovely shelter of canvas and driftwood, with a fire to warm it. I feel like the Queen of the Beachcombers.”
“And the—the child?”
One hand went immediately to her still-flat belly. “Yet within me, as far as I can tell. My maid was convinced that the seasickness would put paid to it, but the child seems to be a fighter. As a king’s child should be.”
She was verging on insolence and Abeleyn knew it, but he had ignored her lately and the last few days must have been hard on her. So he merely bowed slightly in acknowledgement, not quite trusting himself to retort with civility.
Her voice changed; it lost its hard edge. “Sire, I apologize if I disturbed you in your . . . meditations. It is only that I have missed your company of late. My maid has set a skillet of wine on the fire to heat. Will you not join me in a glass?”
There were a million and one things he should be doing, and he was with child himself to hear Golophin’s news; but the offer of hot wine was tempting, as was the other, unspoken offer in her eyes. Abeleyn was exhausted to the marrow. The thought of relaxing for a little while decided him. His men could do without him for an hour.
“Very well,” he said, and he took the slim hand she extended and let himself be led away.
From its perch on a nearby bulrush, the gyrfalcon watched with cold, unblinking eyes.
H ER shelter was cosy indeed, if a timber-framed canvas hut could be cosy. She had salvaged a couple of chests and some cloaks from the wreck; these did duty as furnishings.
She dismissed the maid and hauled off Abeleyn’s bloody, salt-cracked boots with her own hands, tipping a trickle of water out of each; then she ladled out a pewter tankard of the steaming wine. Abeleyn sat and watched the flames of the fire turn from pale transparency to solid saffron as the day darkened. So short, the daylight hours at this time of year. A reminder that this was not the campaigning season, not the proper season for war.
The wine was good. He could almost feel it coursing through his veins and warming his chilled flesh. He recalled Jemilla’s maid and ordered her to take the rest of it to the tents of the wounded. He saw Jemilla’s lips thin as he did, and smiled to himself. The lady had her own ideas of worthy and unworthy, expendable and indispensable.
“Are you hurt, sire?” she asked. “Your doublet is bespattered with gore.”
“Other men’s, not mine,” Abeleyn told her, sipping his wine.
“It was magnificent—all the soldiers say so. A battle worthy of Myrnius Kuln himself. Of course, I only heard it. Consuella and I were crouched in the stink of the lower hold under sacks; hardly a good post to observe the ebb and flow, the glory of it.”
“It was a skirmish, no more,” Abeleyn said. “I was careless to think we would get away so easily from Perigraine.”
“The corsairs were in league with the other kings, then?” she asked, shocked.
“Yes, lady. I am a heretic. They want me dead—it is that simple. Using corsairs to kidnap or assassinate me rather than national troops was merely to utilize a certain discretion.”
“Discretion!”
“Diplomacy has always been a mixture of cunning, courtesy and murder.”
She placed a hand on her stomach, seemingly unaware of the gesture. “What of King Mark and King Lofantyr? Were attempts made on their lives?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. In any case, when they arrive home they will face men of power who intend to take advantage of the situation. As I will.”
“It is rumoured that Abrusio is in the control of the Church and the nobles,” Jemilla said.
“Is it? Rumours are unreliable things.”
“Are we still travelling to Abrusio, sire?”
“Of course. Where else?”
“I—I had thought—” She collected herself, squaring her shoulders like a woman determined to face bad news. “Are you to be married, sire?”
Abeleyn rubbed his eyes with one hand. “One day I hope to be, yes.”
“To the sister of King Mark of Astarac?”
“More rumours?”
“It was the talk of Vol Ephrir when we left.”
Abeleyn stared at her. “That rumour happens to be true, yes.”
She dropped her eyes. There were also rumours that the lady Jemilla had had a low-born lover ere Abeleyn had taken her into his bed. She was not sure if the King had heard them.
“Then what of . . . what of the child I bear?” she asked pitifully.
Abeleyn knew his mistress to be one of the most calculating and accomplished women of his court, the widow of one of his father’s best generals; but with his death, she was unrelated to any of the great families of Hebrion. That was one reason why he had allowed himself to be seduced by her: she was alone in this world, and did not belong to any of the power blocs which wrangled in the shadow of the Hebrian throne. She rose or fell on Abeleyn’s whim. He could call in Orsini and have her run through here and now, and no one would raise a hand to defend her.
“The child will be looked after,” he said. “If it happens to be a boy, and shows promise, then the lad will never lack for anything, I swear to you.”
Her eyes were fixed on his, black stabs of colour in her ivory-pale face. Her hand alighted upon his knee.
“Thank you, sire. I have never been blessed with a child before. I hope only that he will grow up to serve you.”
“Or she,” Abeleyn added.
“It is a boy.” She smiled, the first genuine smile Abeleyn had seen from her since leaving Hebrion. “He feels like a boy. I see him curled in my womb with his fists clenched, growing.”
Abeleyn did not reply. He stared into the fire again, remembering the flame and wreck of the battle lately fought. A skirmish, he had called it, honestly enough. There was worse awaiting them in Abrusio. The Knights Militant would not vacate the city without a fight, and no doubt the personal retainers of the Sequeros and Carreras would stand shoulder to shoulder with them. But he would win, in the end. He had the army and the fleet at his back.