Chapter 8 #2
For that glorious day to dawn—and, just as importantly, for Torin to play a key role in its dawning—he needed the Count of Afondir’s cooperation.
An anakriarch of the Mortal Church could not simply walk into the throne room of a heathen kingdom and declare his intent to meddle in local magic and politics.
He needed an escort. Someone of sufficient status to vouch for and protect him.
Cooperation that Afondir had offered, and which this messenger had been sent, it seemed, to rescind.
There would be some pleasure in twisting the man’s haughty expression into naked panic.
‘By Kovan, Agion of Compassion,’ Torin said, and felt the inrush of sacred power.
Cold fire whirled into life at the crown of his head.
His awareness of the messenger’s fears became more pronounced.
No longer mere inferences. Torin could see the emotions trailing from him like loose threads from a frayed hem.
With a motion of Torin’s will, he seized one, and pulled, and watched the man’s carefully woven garment of bravery, loyalty and superiority unravel, revealing the quivering mess he was beneath.
‘You know who we are,’ Torin said, pulling that thread. The messenger’s face went as white as curdled milk. ‘You know that the Count of Afondir will not poison his relationship with the Iron Citadel for the sake of such a one as you.’
The garment unravelled. The messenger’s posture collapsed. His stallion bucked and whickered beneath him, agitated by its rider’s panic.
‘Please,’ the messenger breathed, his voice struggling through a throat seized by terror. ‘You can find him north of the city, near Woodsman’s Hearth.’
Torin released his invocation, and with it his hold on the messenger’s fear. The messenger took a sharp breath, seemed confused for a moment, then shocked and freshly terrified.
Torin felt genuine pity for the man—thrust into this situation, compelled to betray the trust of his lord.
Not the messenger’s fault. Compassion let him see and twist the feelings of others, but it was also a weakness.
In excess, it bred regrets and could lead one to shy away from necessary cruelties.
An excess he remained ever vigilant against.
The git had deserved it, he reminded himself.
‘Thank you,’ Torin said, kneeing his mount forward. ‘I will put in a good word for you with the Count of Afondir and insist that he not remove you from your station.’
The messenger’s face went white again as Anwe and Orn rode past—Anwe with a rumbling chuckle, Orn with a single, pitying glance.
* * *
The sun had long since begun its descent by the time Torin, Anwe and Orn found the Count of Afondir.
They had ridden north from the arranged meeting place where, according to Templar Unwith’s plan, they had been meant to rendezvous with the count’s entourage on their way to King Elbrech’s funeral and Prince Owyn’s crowning.
Only Afondir had not met them on the road, which would delay their arrival to Parwys.
The window of opportunity was narrow, open only because of the prince’s inexperience and his desperation to end the haunting that had claimed his father’s life.
Every day they delayed was a chance that the kingdom’s heathen priesthood—the loathsome druids, an order to which the queen regent belonged—might find a solution.
More, arriving late—worst of all, after the king had already been buried—would be a grave insult to the prince.
If Afondir’s patronage turned from an asset to a disadvantage, Torin had little hope for success.
Two banners fluttered in the breeze of early evening: Afondir’s gold tower on a mauve field, and a silver stag on a field of forest green.
The emblem of Glascoed, Torin recalled—a forested, sparsely populated county to Afondir’s north.
Forests which played host to fae folk and ancient fiends, or so spurious rumours told.
Far more likely ones indicated a nascent rebellion—or at the very least, banditry on the roads, preying on merchants, logging caravans, and wagons loaded with raw iron from the mines on the slopes of the Shield Mountains.
Ifan, the Count of Glascoed, would be on his way to Parwys, too, then, for the funeral and coronation.
But, at least from the maps Torin could recall, a more direct route lay across the hills and marshlands that separated his county from the royal holdings.
Why had he travelled this way? And why had Afondir detoured to meet him on the road?
A housecarl in Afondir’s livery spotted their approach.
He motioned for two halberdiers, who fell in behind him, then called for Torin to halt.
Torin reined in his mount and waited, making his face a placid, gentle mask.
The housecarl looked them over. His gaze lingered on their weapons and armour—particularly the enormous sword strapped to Anwe’s saddle—before settling on the pendant of nested triangles Torin wore.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ the housecarl snarled up at them.
‘Neither are you,’ Torin observed.
The housecarl’s glare might have stripped the hide from a stag. ‘Go back to your encampment. Things have changed.’
‘Indeed,’ Torin said. ‘And I would like to know why. The Count of Afondir sent for me.’
‘Things have changed,’ the housecarl repeated, his voice taking on a biting edge.
While they spoke, Orn extended his spine to peer over the assembled crowd. ‘The banners stand over a pavilion.’
‘Where I suspect we will find the count,’ Torin said. ‘Let us pass, man. Unless you intend to slaughter the count’s guests as they arrive?’
Indecision broke the housecarl’s stolid expression. Torin urged his mount forward, wondering if the man might seize his reins, or draw his sword, or motion for one of the halberdiers to drive his weapon through Torin’s chest. Instead, he stepped aside, though anger burned in his eyes.
Antagonising the count’s retainers was perhaps not a temperate act, but Torin’s patience had been spent on the long, unexpected journey north from their scheduled meeting place.
His stomach growled, having been filled with nothing but trail biscuits and water all day.
More, he could not afford to let this insult to the Mortal Church stand.
Despite what the count had been led to believe, Torin’s purpose here was not to place Afondir on the throne, but to open Parwys to the Church’s influence.
This corner of the world would be scoured clean, its people led into lives of virtue and flourishing, freed of their dependency on the leavings of the First Folk—ancient powers that enticed like roses, only to sting the soul with poisoned thorns.
Afondir may serve as the Church’s tool in this mission, for now, but only if he proved pliable.
No king stood above the sacred Anakriseion of the Iron Citadel, let alone a backwater count.
They traversed the impromptu camp on the First Folk Road, passing retainers in mauve and gold finery to the left and folk in hardy foresters’ garb—muted greens with the rare stitch of silver trimming—to the right.
A few watched them with curious eyes, but it appeared that, having made their way past the perimeter of the camp, the common soldiery saw no need to challenge them.
The southern edge of the Greenwood reached down to the east, whence an occasional shout or baying hound sounded.
At a word from Torin, Orn raised himself up and peered in that direction.
‘Some kind of search party,’ he reported. ‘Scattered groups combing the woods. Unclear what they’re looking for.’
‘Whatever it is, it better be bloody vital,’ Anwe muttered.
A sentiment Torin shared, and a question that would be answered once he brought Afondir to heel.
As they neared the pavilion, two more housecarls moved to intercept them.
‘Who goes there?’ shouted one, a whip-thin young woman with a scar-seamed face. The only sign of her office was a stag’s head badge on her chain mail. Her sword was half out of its sheath. ‘Stay back!’
‘Sir Torin of Tarebach, and his retainers Sir Orn and Sir Anwe,’ Torin replied, and made a subtle motion to Anwe lest she reach for her own weapon. ‘We have travelled far, chasing news of your kingdom’s troubles, and intend to offer our aid to the count and your king.’
‘What troubles are those?’ the woman snapped.
The other housecarl—a round man with a curled black beard and gold on the embossing of his breastplate—fixed Torin with an accusatory glare.
Like the man who had challenged them at the edge of the camp, he likely knew something of Afondir’s machinations.
‘Tell their Lordships of these new arrivals,’ he said.
‘We should take their horses, wallop them silly, and send them away,’ his counterpart snarled.
Anwe burst out laughing. Torin fought the urge to glare her into silence.
‘Not for us to decide, is it?’ the Afondish housecarl said. ‘We serve at their pleasure, and their pleasure may well be to meet these folk.’
The Glascoen woman muttered under her breath, but slammed her sword back into its sheath and turned on her heel.
When she was out of earshot, the Afondish housecarl reached to his neck and pulled an iron chain from beneath his gorget.
A medallion hung from it, emblazoned with three nested triangles.
‘You are bold to change the plan in this way, Inquisitor,’ the man said quietly.
Torin smiled down at him, offering a small, silent blessing to this unexpected servant of the Church.
But of course, given the welcome Afondir had offered to the Iron Citadel, it would follow that some of his servants and retainers had come to embrace the light of virtue.
They could not all be as pig-headed as their count.