"It should be no trouble for an accomplished strategist such as you. Don't you have the Gift of Leadership? I might remind you that since you will not be an official platoon of the Guard, there is no reason you cannot travel directly west."
"You expect me to lead a group of untrained prisoners through the Contested Lands and survive? You overestimate my skills."
"Your group's survival is not a requirement. Only the completion of your objective."
"I see."
Purane-Es sat. "I recommend you begin your preparations. In Midwinter, dawn comes all too quickly." Purane-Es took a pipe from his leathern satchel and lit it contemplatively. "I'd wish you luck, but of course I won't shed a tear if you fail." He smiled.
"Of course you won't," said Mauritane, turning on him. "Your predisposition to place personal grudges over matters of state is what brought me here."
"Spite is a luxury you cannot afford right now, Mauritane. You have work to do."
"Fine. Tell the warden to give me two men and then get the hell out of my way."
Mauritane saluted again, turned on his heel, and left the room. PuraneEs smoked his pipe and swore every curse he could think of.
Outside, Mauritane nearly stumbled over Crenyllice and Jem Alan, who hovered by the door. Catching himself, he drew his shoulders high and spoke to Crenyllice for the first time not as a prisoner but as a commander. "Go inside. Purane-Es has orders for you," Mauritane told the warden. He took Jem Alan's shoulder. "You're coming with me. Time is short." Neither of them questioned him. The Gift of Leadership, he realized, had not fled him.
Within an hour, Mauritane had two guards, as well as a number of prisoners, helping him make preparations. The overnight kitchen detail loaded dried meat and biscuits into folds of waxed paper, then into the saddlebags Mauritane requested. They filled skins with water and hung them alongside. In the prison armory, Jem Alan helped Mauritane select arms, all the while complaining in his rough voice about the breach of protocol it entailed. He did, however, compliment Mauritane's choice of sword: a long, curved saber with no adornments, but a wicked blade.
"What is its lineage?" said Mauritane, swinging the sword gently, thrusting into the air. "It spoke to me."
"None as I know of," said Jem Alan. "Perhaps you'll give it a start in life."
"I rode into many battles with my Guard blade," said Mauritane. "Purane-Es's father wears it now. Perhaps it's time for a new one." He handed the sword to Jem Alan. "Give that to Gray Mave and have him sharpen it."
Jem Alan took the blade. "Haven't you heard, Mauritane? Mave's been fired. They sent him packing after you took his sword. Worthless lump of dung, he was, anyway."
Mauritane took the sword back, his eyes cast downward. "I'll sharpen it myself," he said.
He paced the prison stables, asking the head groom about each beast in turn, ordering that his selections be spellwarmed and saddled by dawn.
"Which of these horses is touched?" he asked the groom.
"None, sir. We've no call for smart horses around here."
Mauritane approached Purane-Es in the warden's office.
"Give me your horse," he said.
Purane-Es laughed out loud. "You're dreaming if you think…"
"If I'm going through Contested Lands with four undrilled prisoners at my back, I'm doing it with a touched mount, or I may as well slit my own throat here and now and save some buggane the trouble."
"Fine," said Purane-Es. "Take the horse. Just one more debt to collect on when you're through."
Mauritane left the warden's office and found Jem Alan at the guard station, drinking chicory with the other guards. Mauritane took a page from the logbook and dipped a quill, writing out ten names. "Bring me these ten," he said, pushing the page into Jem Alan's hand without bothering to blot it.
Jem Alan held up his fingers, black with ink and swore. "I much preferred him as a prisoner," he said.
silverdun
The cell was empty save for a cot, a chest of drawers, and a few personal items on the windowsill: a hairbrush, an opal ring, a long pipe and tobacco pouch. Moonlight, filtered through clouds, dusted the floor of the chamber in pale gray. The cell's occupant, Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun, Master of Oarsbridge and Connaugh manors, knelt at the edge of his prison cot, his head bowed as if to pray. He often knelt this way, thinking of nothing, coming close to mouthing the words of his mother's Arcadian prayers, but he always stopped short, disbelieving, scowling. At times he wept bitterly for his wasted future, for his sisters and the ignominy they must face, for the loss of his title and deeds to his lands, those things that identified him as a peer and a nobleman. Other nights, such as tonight, he simply watched the moonbeams grow across the rough wooden floor until his knees ached and he stumbled into bed, his mind racing, but his sleep, when it came, was black and dreamless.
When he heard the key sound in the lock of his door, he bolted upright, smoothing his tunic and running his hands through the waves of black hair that fell around his face as he stood.
"Do you require something of me?" Silverdun asked, referring to the guard who stood in the doorway, a bright lamp in hand. The lamp cast long flickering shadows across the floor that evaporated the pools of moonlight there.
"You're wanted in Jem Alan's office."
Silverdun studiously avoided meeting the guard's gaze. "I didn't hear a milord' in there anywhere," he corrected. "You are not permitted to speak evenly with me."
"Fine," said the guard. "You lordship is wanted. Now move your lordship's ass or I'll move it for you."
Silverdun locked eyes with the guard. "Much better," he said.
The guard frowned.
"What does the old fool want with me at this hour? Am I about to be engaged in one of his drunken reveries? How much has he had to drink?"
"I'm to say nothing about it."
"Ah, intrigue! And here I was just moaning about how dull my life has become."
The guard's frown intensified. "This way, milord."
Silverdun followed the guard across the empty courtyard to the North Tower, wind from the sea catching his braids and lashing his face with them. The night air had a frozen tang to it that Silverdun could taste. It was not a wholesome flavor.
"This is the last night I will spend at Crete Sulace," he suddenly said, and knew that he meant it, although he had no idea why. It was not uncommon, however, for his mouth to know things before his mind could consider them.
When they reached Jem Alan's rooms in the North Tower, Silverdun pushed ahead and flung the double doors open with a shove.
"By the Queen's tits, Jem Alan, do you never sleep?" he shouted. "One drink and one drink only." Silverdun drew up short when he realized it was Mauritane and not the Vice Warden, at the desk in Jem Alan's sitting room.
"Promoted from prisoner to Vice Warden all of an evening? I'd say you've been busy tonight, Mauritane. Tell me, is it really all about who you know?"
Mauritane waved the guard away. "Sit down," he said to Silverdun. "I'll be with you in a moment." Before him on the desk was a set of charts and maps and a compass, arranged neatly over the surface of the desk. In the center, Mauritane took notes with a long, black quill on a wide sheet of paper.
Silverdun dropped into a chair opposite Mauritane and took a cigarette from the carved wooden box on the table, lighting it with a bit of witchlight from his fingertips. He glanced around the room with a disconcerting sense of finality still lingering from his moment of lightheadedness in the courtyard.
Jem Alan's rooms were once those of the Prince himself, or at least a spellturned version of those rooms; it was impossible to tell. The fire burning in the enormous stone hearth seemed solid enough. The same moonlight that had quietly played in Silverdun's cell erupted here through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall, their arched tops casting looming, rounded shadows on the double doors through which Silverdun had entered. The only other light came from the lamps Mauritane had on the desk, serving the dual purpose of illumination and of weighing down the scrolling maps.
Mauritane circled a sum with his quill and looked up, catching Silverdun's eye for the first time.
"I need your help," said Mauritane.