The wind in their faces was sea-scented. Somewhere ahead an inlet in the coast waited. Was a ship there—to make a quick pickup and then to sea—to Karsten? What had brought Loyse into such danger? He wished for the Falconers and their trained birds to spy on what lay ahead.
Simon could hear the rustling advance of his men—they would certainly not go unheralded in this country. His mount flung up its head and neighed—to be answered from ahead. Then they came out in an open pocket of meadow sloping gently to beach in a cove. Two horses grazed there, saddles empty. And well out stood a ship, its painted sail belly-rounded by the wind, it was far beyond their reaching.
Jaelithe dismounted, ran towards a splotch of color on the beach and Simon followed her. He stood looking down at a woman. Her face was oddly blank and calm, though both her hands were tight upon the blade which had been driven into her. To Simon she was a stranger.
“Who?”
Jaelithe frowned. “I have seen her. She was from across the mountains. Her name—” From storehouse of memory she produced it in triumph. “Her name was Berthora and she once lived in Kars!”
“Lord!”
Simon looked to where one of the troop beckoned. He went to see what was mounted on the very edge of the wave-lapped shore. A spear driven deep into the sand so that it stood uprightly defiant held a mail gauntlet. He did not need any words of explanation. Karsten had been and gone, and wanted that coming and going known. Yvian had declared open battle. Simon’s hand closed upon that gauge and pulled it loose.
* * *
* * *
2 BORDER FORAY
THE RAYS of the lights centered on the glittering thing in the middle of the board, making it seem to ripple with a mindless life of its own. Yet it was but a glove, sweat-stained leather palm down, mailed back up.
“She left two days ago, but the why no one can say—” Bleak voice from which the fellowship had chilled away, leaving only grim purpose. Koris of Gorm stood at the end of the table, leaning forward, his hands so tight about the haft of his war ax that his knuckles were sharp ridges. “Last eve—last eve I discovered it! By what devil’s string was she tolled here?”
“We can take it,” Simon replied, “that this is Karsten’s doing and the why we can guess.” More “whys” than one, he thought, and meeting Jaelithe’s gaze, knew that she shared that guess or guesses. With Koris so emotionally involved this kidnaping would upset the delicate balance of Estcarp defense. Not even witch power was going to keep the young seneschal from Loyse’s trail, at least not until he had a chance to cool off and begin to really think again. But had that ship borne away Jaelithe would he, Simon, have been any the different?
“Kars falls.” A simple statement, fact when delivered in that tone of voice.
“Just like that?” Simon retorted. For Koris to go whirling over the border now with such a force as he could gather in a hurry was the worst stupidity Simon knew. “Yes, Kars falls—but by planning, not by attack without thought behind it.”
“Koris—” Jaelithe’s long-fingered hand came out into the light which had gathered about Yvian’s battle gauge, “do not lessen Loyse!”
She had his attention, had broken through to him when Simon had failed.
“Lessen her?”
“Remember Briant. Do not separate those in your mind now, Koris.”
Briant and Loyse—again she was right, his witch-wife; Simon gave respect where it was due. Loyse had ridden as the blank-shield mercenary Briant, had lived with Jaelithe in Kars, keeping watch in the very maw of the enemy, just as she had stormed into Sippar. And as Briant she had not only won free of Verlaine, but brought the captive Jaelithe with her at the beginning of her adventure, when all the might of that castle and its lord had been arrayed against her. The Loyse who was also Briant was no helpless maiden, but had a mind, will, and skills of her own.
“She is Yvian’s—by their twisted laws!” Koris’ ax moved into the light in a sweeping arc which bit deep, severing the stuff of the gauntlet as if it had been fashioned of clay.
“No—she is her own until she wills it otherwise, Koris. What manner of mischief was wrought to get her into their hands, I do not understand. But that it can hold her I doubt. However, think on this, my proud captain. Go you slashing into Kars as you wish, and she will then be a weapon for Yvian. The Kolder taint still lies there—and would you have her used against you as they can do?”
Koris’ head turned to her, he looked up to meet her gaze as he must always do from his dwarfish height. His too-wide shoulders were a little hunched, so that he had almost the stance of an animal poised for a killing leap.
“I do not leave her there.” Again a statement of fact.
“Nor do we,” Simon agreed. “But look you—they will expect us to be after such bait, and the trap will be waiting.”
Koris blinked. “So—and what then do you urge? To leave her wrest herself free? She has great courage—my lady—but she is not a witch. Nor can she, one against many, fight a war on her own!”
Simon was ready. Luckily he had had those few hours, before Koris and his guard had come pelting into the keep, to do some planning. Now he slapped a parchment map down beside the ax head still dividing the severed gauntlet.
“We do not ride directly for Kars. We could not reach that city without a full army and then we needs must fight all the way. Our van will enter the city at Yvian’s invitation.”
“Behind a war horn?” Koris demanded. “Shape changing—?” He was not so hostile now, beginning to think.
“After a fashion,” Simon told him. “We move here . . .”
There was a risk. He had been considering such an operation for weeks, but heretofore he had thought the balance against it too great. Now that they needed a lever against Karsten it was the best he could think of.
Koris studied the map. “Verlaine!” From that dot he glanced at Simon.
“Yvian wants Verlaine, has wanted it from the start. That was partly his reason for wedding Loyse. Not only does the wreckers’ treasure stored there beckon him—remember his men are mercenaries and must be paid when there is no loot in prospect—but that castle can also give him a raiders’ port from which to operate against us. And now, with the loot from the Old Race exhausted, he will need Verlaine the more. Fulk has been very wise, not venturing to Yvian’s territory. But suppose he would—”
“Trade Verlaine for Loyse! You mean that is what we shall do?” Koris’ handsome face was frown-twisted.
“Allow Yvian to believe he is going to get Verlaine without any trouble.” Simon put together the ideas he had been holding in mind. As he spoke Koris’ frown faded, he had the concentration of a general picking at a piece of strategy seeking weaknesses. But he did not interrupt as Simon continued adding the facts which his scouts had garnered to the reports of the Falconers, lacing the whole together with his knowledge of such warfare from the past.
“A ship on the rocks will bring them out to plunder. Fulk will have a guard still in the castle, yes. But they will not be watching the ways within his own walls which he does not know. Those were Loyse’s ways and my lady knows them. A party coming down from the mountains will burrow in thus, and the heart of the keep is ours. We can settle then with those combing the shore for loot.”
“It will take time—and a storm—at the proper day and luck—” But Koris’ protests were feather-light and Simon knew it. The seneschal would agree to his plan; the danger of a headlong storming into enemy territory was past. At least as long as Koris could be occupied with Verlaine.
“As for time,” Simon rolled up the map, “we have been moving to this goal for a day or more. I have sent a message to the Falconers and they have infiltrated the peaks. There are Borderer scouts who know every trail in that cutback, and Sulcarmen will man one of the derelicts from Sippar harbor. With new sails it will ride well enough, the waterlogging setting it deep enough in the waves to seem full cargoed, and it can bear merchant symbols of Alizon. The storm—”
Jaelithe laughed. “Ah, the storm! Do you forget that wind and wave are liegemen to us, Simon? I shall see to wind and wave when the hour ripens.”