Marl organized hunts for Gayan Kay and his friends, arranged the balls and gatherings he was so fond of, paid his overdue bills, and kept largely in the background until he had studied the man fully. He learned to read Gayan Kay. The man had an ego the size of a mountain, but he was no fool.
Except for his belief that he was a poet of distinction.
Often he would invite his friends to listen to his latest compositions. They were mostly maudlin and trite, but his hangers-on would applaud wildly. Marl joined in, and waited his moment. One evening he listened as Gayan droned on, and noticed that the knight was not offering the piece with his usual verve. Marl sensed that he was unsure of the poem – as well he might be. It was singularly awful. At the close all his companions told him how wonderful it was. Marl took a deep breath. ‘I do not think, sir,’ he said, ‘that it is worthy of you.’ A stunned silence followed. Gayan Kay’s face went pale. Marl pressed on smoothly. ‘Had any other poet offered such a piece I would have praised them to the skies. It is wonderful and vibrant. But your work, sir, is normally touched with greatness.’
Gayan Kay stood silently for a moment. ‘Damn,’ he said, ‘but I do love an honest man. He’s right. The piece is not worthy of me.’
Within a remarkably short space of time Marl became Gayan Kay’s best friend.
As a result he was drawn into the close circle of men who gathered around the powerful Winter Kay. Their first meeting had been inauspicious. Winter Kay had nodded in his direction then moved away. He was not like his brother. Marl watched him closely. He did not suffer fools, and he was immune to flattery.
It was another year before he saw him again. Winter Kay arrived in the south, took a tour of the manor house, then summoned Marl to the newly refurbished rooms in the southern wing.
‘You have done well, young Coper,’ said Winter Kay. ‘It seems to have been fortunate for my family that old Welham vanished beneath the ice when he did.’
‘I am happy to serve, my lord.’
‘Tell me how he died.’
Marl looked into the man’s cold eyes. ‘The ice cracked as we crossed the river. He was swept away.’
‘Could you have reached him.’
‘I did reach him, my lord. He died though.’
‘My brother is impressed with you, sir. He is easily impressed. I am not.’
Marl said nothing as Winter Kay observed him. ‘From all I have heard you are a thinking man. From what I have seen you are an ambitious one. Ambition is a fine thing. How far, however, will you go to achieve your ends?’
‘As far as is necessary, my lord.’
‘Would you kill?’
‘I would obey the orders of my lord, whatever they were,’ he answered smoothly.
‘I think you would. Find a replacement for yourself here. Train him for a month, then join me at Baracum.’
Marl had expected his first mission for Lord Winterbourne to be tough, but the nature of it caused him his first serious doubts. Winter Kay had a mistress, who had given birth to a son. She wanted him to marry her, and threatened to take the matter of her son’s birthright to the royal court. Marl’s orders were simple. Kill the woman and the brat and dispose of the bodies. Marl had stood outside the woman’s home in the midnight darkness, thinking back to his youth and his father’s teachings. Killing old Welham had been a spontaneous act. This was calculated murder. In the end Marl reasoned that if he did not do it, someone else would. And that someone else would reap the rewards. Therefore, if the woman was effectively dead anyway, why shouldn’t he be the one to benefit from it? He had strangled her and the child, and dragged the bodies down into front room, which he doused in lantern oil.
He could still see the flames as he topped the furthest rise.
Now, as he rode with his two retainers into the grounds of the Moidart’s Winter House, he was what he had always desired to be – a man of power and influence. Winter Kay ruled the Redeemers, and virtually the land. The king was a straw in the wind, nothing more than a human banner to be waved when necessary.