Black Harvest Read online

  “Get to the point, boy,” Cannan said. The words lacked sting; the two men had made their peace years ago. Their conflict was only habit now.

  “Why should I have a point? Can not a nobleman ride the length of the kingdom for the sake of pleasure? Can not a servant meet his lord in the field only to pay his respects?”

  Ironic questions. Christopher didn’t bother to speak.

  “Indeed,” D’Kan said, as if Christopher’s silence were answer enough. “Even the roads are a trial now. Peasant wagons take precedence over warhorses. Much is changed.”

  “The price of bread is down seven percent,” Christopher said.

  “Pity the bakers.” D’Kan shrugged, his tone admitting he did not really care about bakers. “Yet no doubt they will absorb the loss and keep baking.”

  Actually, the bakers were happy because the cost of their ingredients had fallen at least ten percent, but D’Kan was not here to receive a lesson in economics. He was here for something else.

  “They will,” Christopher said, “as far as I know. But if anyone knows differently, they should tell me.”

  “‘Know’ is a strong word,” the Ranger said. “Intimate. Suspect. Fear. These are softer words, if you are interested in them.”

  “I am.” Christopher tried not to growl.

  D’Kan dropped the act like a wet blanket. “Rank was ever hard to earn; now it is impossible. Young men watch their lives pass by and wonder how they can qualify for the peerage before they are too decrepit to lead. Young women note that their service to their faith must be justified by arcane procedures and standards they neither understand nor accept. It is all fine and well for the old to counsel patience because they have either achieved rank or given up on it. For the rest of us, we see only opportunity marching away with each passing day. Discontent brews upon itself like ale fermenting in a cask. Left too long, it will explode.”

  “How long?”

  “I am not a brewer. I cannot read a recipe with any certainty. Yet parties of young hopefuls push the edges of our maps of the Wild, seeking treasure not yet sequestered by your law. With it comes risk. Risk that the adventurers will not return. Greater risk that they will. Nothing feeds ambition like success.”

  One result leds to angry parents, who were ranked enough to cause him trouble. The other led to greater ranks for the people already causing the trouble.

  “I assume you already know the state of your realm,” D’Kan said, resuming the mask of a polite young man. “I only introduce the topic by way of courtesy. I and several others plan to seek out the Cattlemen of Ser Cannan’s past adventure. If there were any messages you care to send, Ser, I would endeavor to deliver them.”

  Cannan smiled in grim amusement. “There was an outrider named Ragnar. He is honorable enough and may attach some respect to my name. Your sister once healed his child, for which he will still be grateful. For the rest, I can offer you nothing you should not already know.”

  It felt like very little to Christopher, but D’Kan seemed satisfied. Cannan had armed the Ranger with information without laying restraints on how he used it. A neat trick that Christopher had not yet mastered: helping people without also binding their choices to his own ends.

  “I should offer you something, too,” Christopher mused aloud, uncertain until the words left his lips.

  “Our arrangement has been satisfactorily concluded,” D’Kan said. “We owe no debt on either side. Everyone understands that you do not play favorites when handing out ranks.”

  The boy used irony as subtly as a cattleprod.

  “I do as I must,” Christopher said. “As I expect everyone to do.” He fished out the silver vial from under his chainmail tunic and screwed it open. Cannan watched him through hooded eyes again while D’Kan stared in frank curiosity.

  Christopher handed the Ranger a small lump of tael, just enough to promote him to the second rank. The boy had it halfway to his mouth before he stopped to question.

  “And the price of this?”

  “Suppress rebellion as long as you can. Buy me as much time as possible. Oh, and survive your adventure.”

  A smile flitted across D’Kan’s face. “This gift will certainly improve the latter odds. But for the former, I do not know what I can promise. In sheer point of fact, I cannot even guarantee my own faith. At some point, it must necessarily become obvious that you have left the path the gods laid out for you, and both duty and desire will force me to corrective action. As you must surely agree.”

  “I do,” Christopher said. “We just disagree on when.”

  D’Kan stared at him. “How shall we settle on a time?”

  Christopher looked back at the troop of armed men waiting a respectful thirty yards away. They loved him, but they followed someone else. “Ask Karl.”

  “You saddle him with much.” D’Kan was as inscrutable as he had ever been, his face a closed and disciplined mask as the tael disappeared within. “A commoner that could make himself king with a word.” Christopher shrugged and turned back to his horse.

  Later, safely ensconced in the private quarters of his castle, Lalania came to visit him, bringing admonition with her nightly dose of poison.

  “You have provoked jealousy and compromised the voice of your staunchest defender among the Rangers, who now looks like a purchased songbird. He was foolish to accept a rank from you; how much more foolish must you be for having offered? What were you thinking?”

  “It’s what an ordinary king would have done,” Christopher said. “Isn’t it?”

  Lalania stared at him. “It is. And yet . . . how is that relevant? You will never achieve your goal by being ordinary.”

  “No,” he agreed. “What else would an ordinary ruler do?”

  She lowered her eyebrows. “Promote the last of your servants who has not received a rank from your hand.” With a flourish of her hand, she included Cannan in the conversation, where he stood against the wall as still as a column of stone. “Ser Cannan has been loyal beyond measure and gained not a shred of profit, which many feel reflects poorly on your character. It is a common complaint among those who respect Cannan for his strength, of which there are more than you might guess. Yet to promote a warrior who commands not even a scrap of magic would contradict your own precedent. The knights of the kingdom bark now; how they would howl then.”

  Christopher reached for his vial. Cannan frowned.

  “This mistake I can at least forestall,” Lalania muttered and jabbed him with the poisoned pin.

  The fire, as always, but it was an old friend now. He merely flinched.

  Lalania stared at him. He realized that he had moved. He could still move; he stood up from the edge of the bed.

  She flung the contents of the vial on him, emptying it. Every droplet burned like boiling oil. His arm lashed out and caught her hand, instinctively.

  “Careful,” she admonished. “Should you brush against me with poison still on your skin, I will not thank you for it.”

  He let her go. “I guess it’s done.”

  “It is. You enjoy a rare status that I will not give a name to, lest ears past or future are listening.”

  “Then it’s time.” He opened the silver vial and extracted a healthy lump of tael.

  Cannan paused him with the force of his glare. “You know my terms. I will not step an inch off the path we tread.”

  Once, Cannan had forced Christopher to accept rank before he realized the cost. Now their positions were reversed. Christopher could not overpower the man, not without using magic. But he had a more potent weapon.

  “I know,” he said, and held out his hand, offering Cannan the tael.

  Improbably, the man looked to the bard. She breathed in and out slowly, considering for the space of a long breath. Then she nodded, fraught with emotion that Christopher could not read.

  “Go on,” she said softly. “Whatever else comes, you have earned it. What comes next, you may require it.”

  Cannan surrendered
to the combined assault. He took the lump and held it, wonderingly, until the novelty exhausted him. In his case, the briefest instant. The tael disappeared into his mouth.

  “I suppose we have done enough for one night.” Lalania picked herself up to leave. “Although not as much as I had hoped.” She touched Cannan’s arm tenderly before slipping out of the door.

  The big man looked disappointed, which seemed an unusual reaction to gaining a rank.

  “I didn’t realize you enjoyed her company that much,” Christopher joked, trying to lighten the mood.

  Cannan’s face took on a shape that Christopher had never imagined. It looked like a rock trying to blush.

  “Oh,” Christopher said, too surprised to keep his mouth shut.

  “You spent many hours paralyzed and dead to the world,” Cannan said, shrugging unapologetically. “There was little else to do.”

  11

  WINTER OF DISCONTENT

  He watched the rebellion grow like mold climbing up a cellar wall. The nobility were openly insouciant at court, constantly declaiming on their many and varied services to the crown and demanding commensurate reward. The commoners’ discontent was less obvious, but he could see the resignation creeping over them, the glow of hopeful revolution fading in the cold light of winter days. Trouble bloomed at last in the form of an angry petitioner in the livery of his own castle servants. He saw the figure marching up the carpet with determination and hastily sat back down on the throne, abandoning the fleeting relief that court was over, and composed himself to receive a tirade.

  When the peasant woman raised her face from her deep curtsey, he realized who it was. After all, he had just seen her at lunch: his first friend and roommate, manager of his kitchens, and Karl’s wife. “Helga?” he blurted out, surprised.

  Lalania had already moved off the dais, assuming the formal business was done for the day. She paused, looking at him for guidance.

  He waved the bard away. Helga could come to him any time. She didn’t need an audience.

  “I seek royal justice,” the young woman said, her voice cracking in nervous shame.

  Christopher was torn. If she was truly making a formal case, he owed it to her to follow procedure. On the other hand, this was ridiculous. He waved everybody out, letting them know the official court was closed. The crowd began moving toward the exit.

  “Of course, Goodwoman,” he said. “You can speak freely here.”

  She gathered herself to speak. “It is a complement of privilege. I mean, a complaint . . .”

  Christopher interrupted her butchery of legalese. He could barely stand it when it was done right.

  “Helga. Just tell me what the problem is.”

  A switch flipped, and Helga was suddenly a furious hellcat.

  “Your witch! Your witch is the problem. She has already cast her spells upon my husband. Now her spawn seeks to ensnare my son.”

  The children were barely three years old. It seemed unlikely that one of them was working magic.

  “Helga—” he started, but she cut him off.

  “What has that devilspawn to do with my boy? She follows him everywhere! Why can she not find some other child to haunt? Hasn’t her blood taken enough from mine?”

  Christopher waited for her to catch her breath as she trembled in unfamiliar rage. He had noticed the children playing together. Once he had found them in the throne room, completely unsupervised. They had stared at him with curiosity, wondering why he was interrupting them. He had wondered where their nannies were. Both parties had left without answers.

  “He seeks her out, too,” he told Helga. “They like each other.”

  “Because he is enspelled!”

  “I don’t think its magic,” Christopher said gently. “Just nature.”

  “You see it too! You know that harlot already casts a net for him!”

  “I don’t mean like that,” Christopher blushed. “I mean they recognize each other. Like brother and sister.” Better they should be raised that way now rather than later. It would forestall any Greek tragedies.

  “But they are not!” Helga protested. “What of your vow of truth, that you should encourage such a lie?”

  Christopher opened his mouth, but there were literally no words to say. He closed it again.

  Helga clapped her hands over her face, stifling a scream as the fact washed over her. She shook with grief and rage, so fragile that he dared not even comfort her.

  Her hands came away, balled into fists. Her voice was low and hoarse. “Why did you not tell me before?”

  An excellent question admitting of no easy answer. It was a subject no one had discussed, so he had assumed it didn’t need discussing. For once he was the person explaining the obvious, and he didn’t like it. He excused himself as best as he could. “Because the knowledge would bring you pain.”

  “Then why did you tell me now?”

  In sheer point of fact, he hadn’t, although that defense was clearly inadmissible. “Because not knowing would cause you greater pain,” he said, hoping it was the real reason and not merely cowardice.

  Helga hugged herself and wept quietly. Christopher reached out for her, half rising from the throne, but she turned away from his hand.

  “Does Karl know?”

  Christopher sank back into the throne, ashes in his mouth. “I have never told him.” It was the least truthful answer he could give and remain within his vows. “He has never spoken of it to me.”

  “The one thing I could give him that no other could. And now I find she has stolen that too. Yet you reward her with rank, and Karl gets nothing. Everyone around you rises but never Karl.” She was sobbing openly now, but when he leaned forward, she shrank back.

  Lalania had slipped up behind, returning to the scene of disaster. She caught Helga by the shoulders and hugged. Helga melted into her warm embrace and buried her face in the bard’s blonde hair.

  “The fault is mine,” Lalania said, and for once Christopher agreed. “I should have told you years ago, dear Helga. I did not think it mattered. He has never acknowledged the child, and she has never laid a claim. I assumed soon enough there would be other children.”

  “She cursed us,” Helga sobbed. “Nothing works, and I thought it was me. But it was her. She will not let me have a daughter of my own.”

  Christopher’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. Lalania, with Helga’s face safely in her shoulder, dismissed the notion with a roll of her eyes. “Mistress Fae does not command such potent magic. Yet perhaps there is something that needs to be done. We shall ask the Cardinal. If that fails, there are medicines in the College of Troubadours that men have never bothered to study.”

  He sank back in relief. Lalania could fix it. Until he saw her face. Whatever the answer was, he wasn’t going to like it.

  One of the priestesses had returned, drawn by the sounds of sobbing. Lalania sent Helga off with her to see the Cardinal. Christopher waited warily while Lalania chose her words.

  Finally, she shrugged and spoke bluntly. “It is Karl. That man has ridiculous self-discipline.”

  Christopher tried several different questions in his head, but all of them were absurd, so he left them unspoken.

  Lalania explained, grudgingly. “I don’t think he wants more children. So he has been . . . performing carefully.”

  Cannan, who as always stood at Christopher’s shoulder as silent as a pillar, spoke up incredulously. “For three years?”

  “He is a stubborn man,” Lalania said.

  Cannan was not satisfied. “How can Helga not have noticed?”

  “He is also a skillful man. I doubt she is left in a condition to notice anything.” She arched her eyebrows, trying to make a joke of it. It didn’t help; both Christopher and Cannan winced at the implicit comparison. “Oh, stop it. This is not about either of you.” She turned her attention to Christopher. “You must have a talk with Karl. I cannot guess why he has made this choice and would not dare broach it with him. But it is not
fair to Helga.”

  Guilt fell onto Christopher like an avalanche. There were plenty of reasons for Karl to fear the future, and everything Christopher had done for the last two seasons multiplied them.

  He put it off a few days, then a week. After the second week, he could no longer bear to evade Lalania’s accusing gaze. When he found himself standing in a training yard, watching Karl watching cavalry men putting their horses through paces, he spoke up.

  “Helga came to me with a problem.”

  “I have already told her to drop the matter. As guilty as the witch is, the child is innocent.”

  “Not that,” Christopher said.

  Karl’s face was a warning sign with “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” stamped all over it. He stared at Christopher, amazed that anyone would dare to bring up such an intimate matter. If it weren’t for twelve ranks of supernatural power, continuing this conversation would earn Christopher an epic beating.

  He hunched his shoulders and bulled through. “A wise man once said, to have children is to give hostages to fortune.”

  “Yes,” Karl said, as dry as a desert. “The future is ever uncertain.”

  “Never more so than now.” There, he had said it; the elephant in the room stretched out its trunk and roared.

  “True.”

  Christopher stared out over the training yard, afraid to look at Karl when he spoke. “Do you trust me?”

  For a long moment, Karl simply stared at him. Then he turned to the training field and strode out into the mud, calling corrections to the horsemen.

  There was a time when Christopher would not have understood, when he would have demanded a concrete answer. He had changed. It was not just the strange effect the rank seemed to have on his social perceptions. Years of command had taught him that some questions should not be asked, and some should not be answered. It was the Heisenberg principle of leadership; merely to acknowledge the issues changed their shape.

  Karl had no choice. The man could not be more committed than he already was. To speak would have implied that it was even possible for him to doubt Christopher. Ironically, to say “Yes” could only have meant “No.”