The Payne colours were grey and brown, their sigil a range of hills beneath a raging black storm. The standard flicked and flapped on banners and was stitched into every cloak. The black storm seemed apt to Emeric Manfrey. It was said to denote the Stormy Sea that raged beyond the Stormwall Hills from where Lord Tandrick ruled. But Emeric supposed that black storm could mean something else. The storm of war, black and wild, enshrouding the world in its shadow.
The gruff soldier called Roark was sitting on a stool outside Lady Payne’s pavilion, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. It was common steel, castle-forged. Across the flaps sat another soldier, much younger, plucking on the strings of a lute and humming to himself happily. It was a pleasant sound, an oasis within the growing din that was spreading through the great ward as a hundred thousand men stirred to life. The man Roark lifted his eyes as Emeric approached. “Lot of noise about,” he remarked.
Emeric nodded. “Is Lady Payne inside?”
“She’s putting on her armour,” Roark said. “In case there’s trouble.” He stood from his stool and looked east. “We hear the dragonfolk are flappin’ our way. That so, my lord?”
Word travels fast here. “Yes, it’s true. They will be here by dusk.”
“Dusk. It’s always dusk, isn’t it?”
Emeric did not catch the man’s meaning. “Would you check if the lady is decent, please.”
“Decent? Well listen to him, Lark.” Roark laughed. The soldier-bard called Lark plucked a string and warbled a line from a song, some ballad about decency no doubt. “Aye, I’ll check.” The old soldier disappeared and reappeared a moment later, quick as that. “She’s decent,” he confirmed, finding the word awfully funny for reasons Emeric couldn’t fathom. “In you go, my lord.”
Emeric passed inside. “My lady,” he said, bowing. She was half-dressed in her armour, working from the bottom up. Her torso, chest, and arms were garbed in a padded undertunic, over which her sleek plate would nestle snugly. The usually slicked-back hair was all awry and messy, hanging over her forehead in strands. She swept a hand to put them into place.
“Emeric,” she said. Marian Payne did not call him ‘lord’ as others did, who observed it as a courtesy. There was no malice in that, only truth. The lady was not one to be overly sentimental. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I came to inform you that the enemy host is moving. But I see you already know.”
“Yes. The blaring horns and shouting on the walls did rather spike my interest.” She raised a brow at him. “You ought to do as I am, and armour up, Emeric. The host may still be miles away, but their dragons could come at any moment.”
“I will as soon as I leave you.”
She waited. “And was that it? You came to tell me something I already knew. Or was there something else you wanted?” She lifted her breastplate from its mannequin, sliding it into place with a series of satisfying clicks. “Or perhaps you just came to watch me dress.”
“No, my lady. Just to update you on what was happening.” He paused. “Borrus wondered why you were not at council.”
“Was anything of interest said?”
“No,” he admitted. “It was much the same as usual.”
“Then you have your answer. I never did attend every council at Dragon’s Bane, and nor have I here. Most are tedious affairs that cover the same ground. There’s often a lot of shouting and drinking. I come when I have something to say or there is something interesting to hear.”
She was a blunt woman, to be sure, though Emeric had found her self-possession quite impressive. There were not many women like her in the north, if any. Warrior women were much more common in the south.
She took up a shoulder pauldron. “You are lingering, Emeric Manfrey,” she observed. “Lingerers always have something on their mind.” She clicked the pauldron into place, fitting seamlessly with the rest of her armour, and took up its twin. “Would you like me to make you Lumaran again, is that it? The host is moving closer. Perhaps with all that commotion you might have a chance to infiltrate their ranks unnoticed, and cut the throat of Avar Avam.”
He smiled at that. “Do not put such thoughts into my head, Lady Payne. If I slay Sunlord Avam it will be on the field of battle, with godsteel to grasp.”
“Yes, to defeat your enemies on the battlefield is more noble, of course. That would suit you better. You do not live in a world of spies and sneaks like I do. I have always found your ideals of honour too restrictive myself.”
“They are what have always guided me,” he said. “Even during my exile.”
“Sir Oswald would be proud.”
He furrowed his brow at that. “You need not mock me, Lady Payne.”
“I’m not mocking you, Emeric. I’m praising you, so take it. You’ve shown great strength to continue living a life of probity after what you went through.” She clicked her right pauldron into place. “How have the Tukorans reacted to your return? I have not asked you yet.”
“Well enough,” he said, though it was much more complicated than that. Some of the older men still seemed convinced of Lord Modrik’s slanderous accounts and had not taken kindly to his arrival. They looked away as he passed them, muttering unheard remarks, and once or twice he’d been spat at as he went by. But those occasions were few and far between. Most of the men were too busy with their own concerns to spare much of a thought for a lord long exiled and recently returned. “Not everyone knows who I am. Some have had kind words for me. The rest all ask of my ancestors as though I knew them personally.” His smile was long-suffering. “I’ve had that all my life.”
“People are interested in heroes,” Lady Marian said. She took her left rerebrace and wrapped it about her arm. “Do they ask of Lord Bedrik as well?”
“You know your history, my lady. Yes, some have done so.”
Lord Bedrik Manfrey was Sir Oswald’s grandson, and a staunch ally of Galin Lukar, who was Lord of Redhelm, Warden of the South, and the First Blade of Vandar at that time. When Galin threw down the Sword of Varinar and called his banners to march upon Tukor, Lord Bedrik had gone with him to help siege Ilithor and win the kingdom. The rest was well known. Galin Lukar ousted the last of the Ilithian kings and granted his bannermen lands throughout Tukor. Lord Bedrik was given a tract in the north, and the castle he named Osworth, in honour of his famous grandfather. They flourished, for a time, but not long. Over the centuries their power began to wane, and when Emeric’s father Lord Emerson perished in the war, the strength of House Manfrey had all but been forgotten. I was the last flickering light of a once great house, Emeric thought. And then Lord Modrik Kastor waved a hand, and the flame went out for good.
He gave a bitter shake of the head. “Some say my house is cursed,” he said. “That Lord Bedrik damned us when he joined Galin Lukar in his invasion of Tukor. Sir Oswald was one of the greatest ever Vandarians, and his grandson abandoned the kingdom that made him. I like to think that, sometimes…that we were cursed. It helps to mask my own failures.”
“What failures are you referring to?”
He looked at her. She had stopped dressing and was staring right at him. “My exile, my lady. Most would consider that a failure. No matter the circumstances and injustices. I presided over the fall of my house.”
“And you will preside over its restoration,” she told him.
He shook his head. “Prince Raynald doesn’t have the power. Only a king can grant a pardon.”
“Which he very well may be, should his brother not return. But that is not what I am talking about. Tell me, Emeric…who was Sir Oswald before his rise?”
He sensed a trap but answered anyway. “A knight. Of promise…if not renown.”
“And who did he become?” She smiled and answered for him. “He became the First Blade of Vandar. A hero without equal who sits at the side of Varin for all time, his knights will have you believe. His deeds granted him a lordship, and a house of his own, that famous name you bear. But men don’t care about lands and the titles, Emeric Manfrey. They care about feats. They care about his duel with Karlog and Bagazar. They care about his triumphs with the Sword of Varinar, and the many battles he won by the edge of his blade. So you go out there and wipe away your dishonour with deeds. With feats and triumphs. That is what men care for.”
She was right, he knew, and her words had stirred him. Men did not remember lords, they remembered heroes. If he wanted to restore the name of Manfrey, he would do it by the blade Sir Oswald bore, the eagle-blade at his hip. He gave Lady Payne a low bow. “Thank you, my lady. I will leave you to finish dressing.”
Roark was standing outside with a smile. “Stirring stuff,” he said. “I don’t often hear her talk like that. She must see something in you, my lord.”
