Saska could imagine the sort of training Del might like to engage in with Leshie. Ever since she’d undressed right there before him at the river, he had looked at her differently, and Leshie had teased him relentlessly over it. “Quiet now,” she told them. “They’ve seen us.”
They were nearing the bottom of the slope now, where it flattened out into a rugged mire of pitted grey rocks bordering the edge of the beach. Beyond, the small camp was pitched on the hard-packed sand, no more than a few tents and shelters and lean-tos, and further back, the battered body of Orchard lay beached among the shells and pebbles and seaweed. Men were hard at work with hammers, knocking in nails and fixing what wounds they could, while others picked through the rocks in the surf and a little further to sea, searching for usable driftwood to patch holes in the bulwarks and bow.
Ahead, a host of soldiers were approaching, armed with swords and shields, a dozen or so in number. They looked ragged and half-starved, sunburned and bearded, and their cloaks were salt-stained and discoloured. Saska made out some browns and greens and faded reds, but they were scorched by the sun, sand-scoured and torn. Beneath those cloaks they wore oddments of armour, scratched and stained, much of it leather, but here and there a bit of castle-forged plate and even some misting godsteel.
Saska could not see Lord Gullimer among them. “Del, do you recognise anyone?”
“I think…that one…” He tried to point, but realised he had to keep hold of the banner with both hands, lest he drop it. “The one with the yellow beard and dark hair. And the godsteel sword. That’s Sir Kester Droyn. He’s one of Lord Gullimer’s knights.”
“Should we stay ahorse?” Saska asked the others.
“That would be best until we know their intentions, and they ours,” the Wall told her.
“Dellard must dismount, however,” the Butcher put in. “He must plant the flag. This is how the parley is done.”
Del looked at Saska, unsure. The Wall nodded. “Go ahead, boy. Plant the flag.”
The youth dismounted with a certain lack of grace, almost dropping the banner as he did so, then hastened forward to plant it in the dirt. He did so with great toil, but eventually got the flag standing straight, or near enough, before scrambling back to his horse to mount up. He seemed vastly happy to see his duty done.
The man Del named as Sir Kester took the lead as the band approached, turning his head to shout a command as they picked through the last of the rocks. A soldier came forward, bearing a white flag of his own, though a rather more shoddy version. He planted it down in the earth five metres from their own. “We have parley,” Sir Kester Droyn declared ringingly.
“We have parley,” repeated the Wall.
The Gullimer knight looked at him. He knew him, obviously. Everyone knew the Wall on sight even if they’d never met him. “We had not thought to have seen you here, Sir Ralston.” Sir Kester had yellow eyes to go with his yellow beard, but his hair was almost black. He looked no older than five and twenty. “Nor you, my lady,” he added, smiling at her.
My lady. They know me as well, then. She should not have been too surprised by that. Doubtless her story had spread by now among the ranks of Robbert’s army. Several dozen of the prince’s men had watched as Joy tore Cedrik Kastor’s throat out, after all, and mauled him to a bloody mess, Lord Gullimer himself among them.
“My name is Sir Kester Droyn,” the knight told them, not knowing that they knew. “Of Smallweather.” He inclined his head in a courteous bow. Beneath a cloak of soft grey wool, slashed with crimson stripes, he wore godsteel breastplate, gauntlets, gorget and greaves over a chainmail hauberk of regular steel. His cloak was held at the throat by a brooch in the likeness of a howling wolf with a bloody maw. If that was his sigil, it was not one Saska knew. Nor Smallweather, wherever that was. “May I ask why you have come?”
“To see Lord Gullimer,” Saska said. “Is he here?”
“He is, my lady.” Droyn motioned behind him. Among the shoddy tents and shelters was a larger pavilion, though not by much. “His lordship commands from there. I will bring you to him.”
“We would sooner invite Lord Gullimer to join us out here,” the Wall rumbled.
Saska raised a palm. “No. It’s fine.” She was not about to summon a lord to come out to her, a middling lord though he might be. This was his camp and she would go to him, as a courtesy if nothing else. She dismounted her mare. The other soldiers were peering at her like she was some strange creature, and truly, she was. Not often was a lady seen dressed in a suit of such exquisite godsteel plate, with a broadsword at one hip and an ancient, glowing dagger at the other. Imagine if they knew whose dagger that once was. And who I am. The deep olive skin tone, radiant blue eyes and youthful visage only made her all the more queer to these men. “Sir Ralston will come with me, as escort,” she said.
Sir Kester nodded. “As you will, my lady.” He gave the Butcher a side glance, not much liking what he saw, then noticed Del for the first time. The shadow of recognition crossed his eyes, but he said nothing. “And these others?”
“Will stay here,” Saska said. “I trust that will maintain the terms of parley?”
“It will, my lady.”
Sir Ralston swung a massive leg over Bedrock, landing on the ground with a thump that shook the earth. Several of the men quelled from him, but not Sir Kester Droyn. He looked up at the giant with a smile. “You are even larger in person, sir,” he observed.
The Wall only grunted, as if he’d heard that a thousand times before, and plonked his greathelm down upon his head, clicking it into his gorget. “Lead on, Sir Kester,” he boomed from within that bucket.
Sir Kester nodded, turned, and led them across the rocks. He had a courtly way about him, offering Saska a hand each time they reached a treacherous section. She did not need his aid, of course, but accepted anyway, to show her thanks. He seemed happy with that. “I never liked Lord Cedrik,” he confided in her, as they went. “Not to say his manner of death was my preference, but perhaps there was some justice in that.”
“There is justice in the Long Abyss,” Saska said.
“Indeed. And his crimes will see him there, I am certain. One does not lightly break the terms of parley, my lady. That alone is enough to incur the wrath of the gods.”
Harrowmoor, Saska thought. She had been a spy in the warcamp when Lord Cedrik incited blood at the parley outside the fortress walls. His crimes preceding that were of greater consequence to her, however. “Did you know him well?” she asked.
“Not well, no. More by reputation. There was a knight, a friend of mine…Sir Alistair Suffolk. A good and noble man. Sir Alistair the Abiding, we called him. Not a man to suffer gross injustice and villainy, my lady, such as Lord Cedrik and his Greenbelts perpetrated. Alistair saw fit to challenge him before the men and even threw down his gauntlet and demanded a duel to the death. Lord Cedrik’s response? To drive a dagger into his neck when he wasn’t looking.” His face twisted in disgust. “He proved his ignobility then, if not before.”
Before, Saska thought. Longbefore, Sir Kester.
Droyn glanced back behind them. “That boy with you…he was one of Prince Robbert’s charges, was he not?”
“His squire, for a short time.”
“Ah. The squire.” He smiled. “Yes, I thought it was so. I heard he helped to save our noble prince from that snake Sir Wenfry Gershan. He is well thought of around here.”
That made Saska happy to hear.
“The prince left a chest of treasures, as a reward,” the knight went on. His eyes gave her a quick study. “This plate of yours…”
“Was a gift of Robbert’s, yes,” she confirmed. “And Del’s armour as well, and his bow.” She felt a pang of nerves as she prepared to ask the next question. “The prince…do you know what has become of him, Sir Kester?”
“Alas no, my lady,” he said, with a deflated sigh. “Our fleet suffered sorely during the storms, and of the prince there had been no sign. We lost sight of Hammer long weeks ago. As we did Landslide and Shadow and most others. After a time there was only us and Harvest.” He gestured with a hand to the waters of the bay. Some two hundred metres from the shore Saska could see masts poking out from the surf, a ship submerged beneath. “We had lashed ourselves together as we battled up the coast, but it soon became a losing struggle. Eventually, the tides and currents ran us aground, but Harvest didn’t make it. The old girl had her belly torn upon by a shoal, and went down, but we managed to get her men ashore. Most, at least. Some were taken by sharks.”
Of those men there were many, Saska saw. Hundreds. Kaa Sokari had not been wrong. “You were trying to get up the coast, did you say?”
“Yes, my lady. When we left our anchorage to the south it was agreed that we would regroup in the waters below Eagle’s Perch, should we be scattered by storms. Whether anyone made it there, though…” He gave a shrug.
By then they had passed the last of the rocks and entered the small encampment. Men stopped in their tasks to watch her pass, eyes squinting in recognition. Their ordeal at sea had not been pleasant, that was clear. Many had crusted sores on their faces and red blisters on their hands and feet, with dry cracked lips that spoke of men in desperate want of water. Here and there a cookfire chugged smoke, with fish roasting on spits, and Saska saw a small shark as well, and a bucket of crabs all scrambling over one another as they tried to escape their tin prison. But elsewise food appeared scarce.
