David Gemmell – Rigante 3 – Ravenheart

The carriage slowed as it neared the top of a rise. The driver cracked his whip above the pony’s ears. The little beast lunged forward. Alterith felt a moment of motion sickness and took a deep breath. Then the carriage topped the rise, and the schoolteacher found himself gazing down over the magnificence of the Eldacre valley. The first sight to catch the eye was the mighty castle, rearing like a giant tombstone on a hill above the town.

The ancestral home of the Moidart, Eldacre Castle was a monument to the power and ingenuity of the Varlish race. Alterith’s heart swelled each time he saw it. Walls forty feet high, boasting twenty jutting turrets and four massive gates of seasoned oak, reinforced with iron. Fifteen thousand workers had laboured for seven years to build it. The finest stonemasons and carpenters had been brought in from the south at vast expense. Many of them had stayed on in the valley after the castle was built, including Alterith’s own ancestors, one of whom had been responsible for fashioning the curved rafters of the chapel within the Great Keep.

For three hundred years Eldacre Castle had been an impregnable fortress in times of war, and a mighty symbol of Varlish superiority in times of peace. Just the sight of her massive walls and turrets, fashioned with murder holes and oil vents, was enough to quell any thoughts of rebellion within renegade highland hearts.

The carriage picked up speed as it moved down the hill. Alterith’s motion sickness returned. ‘Slow down, for pity’s sake!’ he yelled.

‘Mustn’t be late, sir,’ answered the driver.

Alterith sat miserably, praying that he would not be sick. Bad enough that his wig had fallen off at the Moidart’s feet. The prospect of arriving before the Moidart in a vomit-stained coat was more than he could bear. The Moidart would, in all probability, dismiss him, and Alterith could ill afford to lose the extra two chaillings a month. Steeling himself, he clung on to the strap on the inside of the carriage door and tried to focus his mind on something other than his heaving stomach. He chose history.

Eldacre. Originally Old Oaks, the centre of government in the ancient kingdom of the Rigante, once ruled by Connavar, Bane, Laguish, Borander and Sepdannet the Leaper. Now a town of some twenty-five thousand souls, with three mines, two of coal, one of gold, five blast furnaces feeding a thriving industry making muskets for the king’s armies, iron rims for wagon wheels, ornate buckles and accoutrements for officers and gentlemen, and swords for the military and for export. It was a prosperous community, a healthy mix of industrial and agricultural, with seventeen churches, a massive cathedral, and an Academy for the Instruction of the Righteous. Alterith himself was a graduate of the academy, having majored in the Terms of the Sacrifice, and the evangelical journeys of St Per sis Albitane.

At last the carriage began to slow, cutting away from the main highway and onto a narrow stone road leading between a line of fir trees. Leaning to his left and looking past the hunched figure of the driver, Alterith could see the wrought iron gates that barred the way to the Moidart’s huge country manor. It was here that the Lord of the Highlands spent the winter. Two musketeers stood sentry, the sunlight gleaming on the gold braid and bright brass buttons of their yellow jerkins. The first of them called out for the carriage to stop, and, laying aside his long-barrelled musket, stepped forward to inspect the vehicle. He looked closely at Alterith.

‘Are you carrying any weapons, sir?’ he asked.

‘I am not.’

‘Be so kind as to step down.’

Alterith pushed open the small door and climbed from the carriage. His black greatcoat was tight fitting, but, he supposed, it could still have hidden a small knife. The soldier expertly ran his hands over Alterith’s garments.

‘My apologies to you, sir, for the impertinence,’ said the sentry.

Alterith resumed his seat and the second sentry opened the gates.

The sound of blades clashing was music to the ears of Mulgrave. Such was the skill of the fencing master that he did not even have to see a duel to judge the skill of the fighters. He had but to hear the sweet sword song of kissing steel. Mulgrave loved to fence, and could have made his fortune as a duellist in any one of fifty major cities across the empire. The problem – though Mulgrave did not see it as such – was that he did not like to kill. There were those who thought him squeamish, and others who whispered that the swordsman was a coward. None, however, was sure enough of either view to dare to speak them to his face.