To Ride Hell’s Chasm

The night duty sergeant arrived at the threshold sooner than he expected. Born above Highgate, Jedrey was not wont to knock for the sake of a desert-bred’s dignity. Still dressed, but not armed, the lordly man had not shed his grimed surcoat, a sure indication he had been in the wardroom, and not at home with his wife.

A stickler for propriety, he never addressed his ranking captain outright, but waited in surly silence.

Mykkael did not look up from his knee, which appeared to consume his attention. ‘From the Middlegate sentry’s report, by your memory, at what hour did Devall’s party pass through? Say how many rode in that company?’

Jedrey scrubbed his chin with the back of one hand, to a grating scrape of blond stubble. He detested such tests. Yet he had learned along with the rest to handle the nuisance in his stride. ‘The man serves as crown advocate for Devall’s heir apparent. He passed the Middlegate with six servants in tow, just after his Highness, our Prince Kailen.’

Mykkael smothered his first impulse to look up. He said, through a grimace as the salve seared his skin, ‘They went together? Be precise, Sergeant.’

‘Perhaps.’ Jedrey shuffled his feet, barely able to rein back impertinence. ‘Devall’s advocate could have stepped back to allow his Highness due precedence for royal rank. If so, your common-born sentry might not have recognized the finesse of a well-bred man showing good manners.’

The predictable note of admonition was there, for the late, callous handling of the lowlanders who were the captain’s evident betters.

Mykkael stifled laughter, his face kept deadpan. Adept at keeping snob sergeants in line, he turned a drilling glance sideways. ‘Tell me, how many of that party just left?’

Jedrey flushed, a patched red that made his blue eyes flash like gem-stone. ‘I did not count their individual backsides. They were angry.’

‘Better worry quick on your own behalf, soldier,’ Mykkael said with edged quiet. ‘I am angry. Inside this keep, off duty or not, I expect a man to keep his eyes open.’

A pointless exercise, to argue that Sessalie was not at war; that such vigilance was unnecessary for patrolling town streets; Jedrey choked back outrage, then found himself off-balanced again by Mykkael’s next clipped question. ‘Why are you still here, Sergeant?’

Jedrey succumbed to the prodding at last, rage couched in his upper-crust accent. ‘You should be in bed. You’re not. That’s no man’s business but yours, don’t you think?’

Mykkael mopped the salve off his competent fingers, one mahogany knuckle at a time. ‘I don’t have a wife left fretting at home. That means you had business and purpose, for staying. Under this roof, soldier, you answer to me.’

No man in the keep contradicted that tone. Jedrey unburdened, his delivery professional. ‘Your seeress was found. In the moat, stone-dead, no mark on her, no foul play’ He curled his lip, his insolent regard sweeping over his captain’s stained surcoat. ‘But you knew that fact already, did you not?’

Mykkael shifted his lamed leg to the floor. ‘My swim happened outside the walls,’ he said, quite suddenly dangerous.

That gleam, in his eyes, shot chills over Jedrey. His overbred arrogance withered. ‘The news just came in, this minute. You sent for me. And I’ve told you.’

‘So you did.’ Mykkael’s tone was cut glass. ‘Since, for self-importance, you delayed the delivery, you can stay on duty and execute my orders. I want the old woman’s body brought here. Get Beyjall, the apothecary, also the physician who lives at the north corner of Fane Street. Let them see if the victim was poisoned or drowned.’

‘She was piss drunk,’ Jedrey stated, stiff under that peeling reprimand. ‘Her heart probably stopped.’

Mykkael shook his head, saddened. ‘The old besom hated and feared open water. Her family knows this. She never went near the moat, drunk or sober.’

‘Foul play?’ Jedrey said, his quick temper dissolved, as it must, to this captain’s deft handling.

‘I think so.’ Mykkael’s desert features were shadowed with pity, and an odd flash of recrimination. ‘Powers deliver her sad, crazy spirit, I think she died very badly’

‘You act as though you killed the old fool,’ Jedrey snapped.

He found himself summarily dismissed, and departed, brooding upon his captain’s fiercely kept silence.

V. Daybreak

SPRING SUNRISE BROKE OVER THE KINGDOM OF SESSALIE, THE PEAKED O ROOF OF THE PALACE A DIMMED GREY OUTLINE, MASKED OVER IN FOG. Inside the walled town, the streets lay choked also. The carved eaves of the houses plinked silvered droplets on to wet cobbles where the slop takers made rounds with their carts and their singsong chants for collection. If the seasonal mist shrouding the morning was normal, the spreading word of Princess Anja’s disappearance cast unease like a spreading blight. The lamplighters had snuffed their wicks and gone home, bearing rumour to garrulous wives. The taverns that should have been shuttered and closed showed activity behind steamy casements.

Talk moved apace. Disbelief became shock, churned to wild speculation as the craftsmen unlocked their shops. Women veiled in the damp fringe of their shawls clustered in the Falls Gate market, while the vendors commiserated and shook puzzled heads. There were no eye witnesses. Even first-hand accounts from the feast yielded no shred of hard fact. No one could imagine a reason to upset the match between Devall’s heir apparent and Princess Anja.

Least of all his Highness, Prince Kailen, who reeled in drunken, vociferous bliss up the switched back streets towards the Highgate. Ribald echoes caromed off the mansions as he was led homewards astride a palace guardsman’s borrowed mount.

The pair, immaculate man-at-arms and dishevelled prince, passed up the broad avenue, shattering the quiet and driving the ladies’ lapdogs into frenzied yapping on the cushions of their bowfront windowseats. The procession clopped past the palace entry. It crossed the bordered gardens of the royal courtyard, where the seneschal awaited, a wasp-thin silhouette in sober grey, arms folded and slender foot tapping.

‘Powers that be!’ the prince slurred from his precarious perch on the horse. ‘Why does it always have to be you?’

‘Importunate offspring!’ the seneschal huffed under his breath. He steadied the bridle, while Taskin’s guardsman helped the prince down and supported his weaving stance.

The next moment became awkward, as, knocking elbows, court official and palace man-at-arms exchanged burdens; the one reclaimed his loaned horse, while the other assumed the jelly-legged burden of Sessalie’s inebriated prince.

Too tall and thin to manage the load gracefully, the seneschal wrinkled his mournful nose. ‘Sorrows upon us, your Highness. Each day, I thank every power above that your mother never lived to see this.’

‘She’s in a better position than you to make herself heard on that score.’ Kailen laughed. His handsome, fair features tipped up towards the sky, which, to judge by his rollicking sway, appeared to be wildly spinning. ‘At least dead, with her list of queenly virtues, she’d be more likely to claim the ear of omnipotent divinity.’

But the Seneschal of Sessalie was too old and lizard-skinned to shock; and Kailen, that moment, was a young man too dissolute to shame.

The guardsman stayed professionally deadpan throughout. Bound to deliver the messages he carried from Captain Mykkael of the garrison, he remounted the moment he received his dismissal and rode off to make his report.

The seneschal turned Kailen around, then began the last leg of the journey to haul his charge to the royal apartments. He puffed, grunting manfully, taxed far beyond his frail build and aged strength. All his fastidious senses were revolted by the reek of the prince’s clothes—below town smells of urine and stale pipe smoke; boiled onions, trout stew and dark beer.

‘Why oh why do you do this, your Highness? Now, more than ever, we need your subjects to see you as your father’s trustworthy son.’

‘Need me?’ Prince Kailen snorted. ‘Need me? Nobody needs me! Only Anja.’ He flung out an arm muscled fit from the tourney, too sodden to notice the woes of the courtier who sweated and struggled to brace him. ‘Find my sister, get her wed.’ He tripped, gasped a curse, then maundered into the seneschal’s longsuffering ear. ‘You’ll have your coveted sea trade from Devall. My sister reigns as a wealthy queen over us, and I, her poor relative, steward no more than Sessalie’s dirt-licking farmers.’

‘You’ll marry one day,’ the seneschal chided, wrestling the prince’s incompetent bulk up the first flight of marble steps. ‘Who knows what alliance your betrothed might bring?’

Proceeding in comedic jerks and sharp stops, the mismatched pair passed the fountain at the arch, and missed falling in by a hairsbreadth.

‘Oh, my intended will wed for a bride gift of turnips,’ said Prince Kailen, morose. ‘Who sends the princess of anything here, to marry a king who counts out his year’s tithes in cattle?’

‘Just let us get you into the hands of your valet.’ Paused, gasping, the seneschal fumbled to grasp the bell rope, and summon a footman to open the door. He was tired himself, bone-weary of Sessalie’s thankless, long service. Under damp morning mist, plagued by the ache of a near sleepless night, he had no ready answer to give to ease Kailen’s maudlin grasp of the truth. ‘Only pray your royal sister is found safe from harm, or she’ll marry for turnips as well.’

At mid-morning, when sunshine struck through and shredded the mists into snags against the snow-clad peaks, Commander Taskin had rested and washed. Reclad in a spotless, fresh surcoat, he sat at his desk in the wardroom gallery, a light breakfast sent by his daughter reduced to stacked dishes and crumbs. The gold-leafed tray had been pushed aside. Folded forearms rested upon gleaming marble, Taskin listened to the guardsman who recited Captain Mykkael’s report.

The official version was short and concise, covering the seeress found drowned in the moat, then the ongoing search for the flower girl whose petition for augury had coincided with the first unsettled rumour. Street watch had been increased. Informers were being interviewed. Mykkael expected results in by noon, along with opinions on the seeress’s corpse from a reliable physician and a Cultwaen-trained apothecary.

The unofficial report ran much longer, and contained several unsatisfactory gaps.

This shortfall fell at the feet of the guard now sweating beneath Taskin’s scrutiny. Unhappy with his assignment to Lowergate’s keep long before Mykkael’s shiftless absence, the weary man suffered the grilling review, his embarrassed features flushed the same hue as his blazoned palace surcoat.

Taskin’s long, swordsman’s fingers were not sympathetic, tapping in scarcely muffled irritation as he posed his string of questions. ‘You say Mysh kael’s own men don’t know where he went, though he came back soaked from the moat?’

‘Well, the talk says the corpse might have something—’

Taskin interrupted. ‘I don’t want hearsay, or wild rumours from the lips of the disaffected! When I said I wanted that captain watched, I meant you to mind orders, soldier! I don’t give a damn how Mysh kael slipped your escort. Understand, and dead clearly: you failed in your given charge.’

‘You don’t trust that slinking desert-bred, either,’ surmised the shamed guard.

The rebuke came, keen-edged. ‘Trusting the man is not the same thing as knowing what he’s about.’

A door opened, below. Taskin’s relentless attention changed target to assess the arrival crossing his wardroom downstairs. The guardsman kept discipline, too chastened to risk a glance past the balcony railing. Faced forward, he made out the patter of slippered feet, approaching by way of the stairwell.

A gleam of sharp interest lit Taskin’s eyes. ‘At least now we’re likely to fill in one bit of guesswork raised by your inept watch.’ He grasped the papers stacked to his right, flipped them face down on his desktop, then weighted the sheaf with the warming brick filched from under the plate on his breakfast tray. ‘Stand aside, soldier, but mind your deportment. You’re not dismissed. My case with you will stay open until after I’ve settled the matter at hand.’

The man-at-arms moved, accoutrements jingling, and took position behind Taskin’s shoulder.

Seconds later, the gallery door swung open. A man in gold braid and maroon livery stepped in with the peremptory announcement, ‘His Highness, the heir apparent of Devall.’

Two more lackeys followed, then a rumpled-looking dignitary who appeared short on sleep. Next came a pageboy, groomed and jewelled, his costume topped by a tasselled hat that made him resemble a lapdog. At his heels, wearing costly black silk trimmed with rubies, the Prince of Devall stalked in like a panther.

The commander of King Isendon’s guard did not rise, which caused his royal caller a flare of stifled pique. The fact that no servant had been sent in advance should have said, stark as words, that the business that brought him was sensitive.

‘Your Highness?’ said Taskin. ‘I regret, without notice, steps could not be taken to seat you in proper comfort.’

There were no chairs. No fool, the Commander of the Guard did not volunteer to surrender his own. The High Prince of Devall swiftly realized he was required to stand, and his dignitary with him, like any other drill sergeant taken to task on the subordinate’s side of the desk. He met the challenge of that opening play with an unruffled smile, though his gold eyes showed no amusement.

‘I will not apologize for my inconvenience, your lordship.’ The heir apparent snapped his ringed fingers, and a lackey jumped, removed his velvet mantle, and draped the lush cloth over the railing that fronted the gallery. There, still smiling, the lowcountry prince sat down. Throughout, he stayed untouched by the rancour that smoked off his dour court advocate.

That worthy held to his bristling stance, his caustic glare fixed upon Sessalie’s titled defender. ‘We have a complaint,’ he announced, only to find himself cut off by the suave voice of his prince.

‘Not a complaint, Lord Taskin. Rather, I bring you a heartfelt appeal.’ Settled without a visible qualm for the twenty-foot drop at his back, the high prince handled himself with the aplomb of a sovereign enthroned in his own hall of audience. ‘Princess Anja would not have us at odds over quibbling points of propriety. She is precious to me. This scandal has already shadowed our wedding. Should I not want her found, and restored to my side with all speed?’

‘Precisely where do we stand at odds, your Highness?’ Taskin steepled his fingers before him, eyes open in unflinching inquiry.

Rubies flashed to the High Prince of Devall’s deprecating gesture. ‘Your response to the crisis has been diligent, of course.’ His handsome face shaded into uncertainty, a reminder that he was yet a young man, brilliantly accomplished, but with heart and mind still tender with inexperience. ‘I refer to the fact that my help has been rejected at every turn.’

The dangerous insult, by indirect implication, that perhaps King Isendon’s daughter had been fickle by design, had no chance to stay hanging between them. The smouldering advocate snatched at the opening to vent his affront.

‘Not simply rejected, my lord commander!’ Chalky, all but trembling, he served up his accusation. ‘Your gutter-bred cur of a garrison captain had the gall to draw naked steel in my presence. I want him punished! Let him be publicly stripped of his rank for threatening an accredited royal diplomat.’

‘He’s owed a stripe, I’ll grant you that much,’ Taskin said, unmoved rock, against which hysteria dashed without impact. ‘Not in public, however. In Sessalie, a soldier’s chastisement is always determined by closed hearing. Nor will I ask my king to remove the captain from his post. Mysh kael keeps his oath as a competent officer. Question that, though I warn, if you open that issue, you had better bring me hard proof.’

‘I will not mince words.’ The High Prince of Devall regarded his hands, clasped in jewelled elegance on his knee. ‘Captain Mysh kael came in from an unspecified errand, his clothing still wet from the moat. There, we are also given to understand, the seeress who started the rumour of Anja’s disappearance had been drowned. Her corpse was recovered soon afterwards. Scarcely proof,’ he admitted. His brass-coloured eyes flickered up to meet Taskin straight on. ‘Perhaps those events suggest grounds for an inquest, at your discretion, of course.’ His scalding censure suggested that in Devall, no ranking captaincy was ever made the prize of a public contest at arms.

Throughout, the commander maintained his taut patience. ‘Sessalie’s small, remote, and at peace for so long, our instinct for warring has atrophied. The Lowergate garrison in fact patrols the streets for thieves and disorderly conduct. An unsavoury pursuit, on our best days, and the crown’s pay for the job is a pittance. Not having strife, without conquests or prospects for further expansion, we’ve maintained the summer tourney as hard training to mature the ambitious younger sons of our nobility. We have never, before this, attracted any foreigner, far less one approaching Captain Mysh kael’s martial prowess. Believe me, the upset has caused dog pack snarling aplenty, and no small measure of chagrin.’

‘But now Sessalie has a missing princess, a tragedy also without precedent.’ The High Prince of Devall held the commander’s regard, no easy feat even for a man born royal. ‘Dare you trust her life that this is a coincidence?’

Taskin cut to the chase. ‘You’re asking me to allow your men leave to lead inquires below Highgate?’

His Highness eased at once with relief. ‘Can that hurt? You would benefit. If your garrison man is innocent, my outside observation will clear him. I, in my turn, seek relief from helpless worry. I can’t pace the carpet through another sleepless night! Not when we speak of the princess I would cherish as my wife, an intelligent partner befitted to rule Devall as a crowned queen at my side. Anja will raise the heir who carries my rule into the next generation. Her worth to me is beyond all price. Why should Sessalie stand on ancient pride, and refuse to acknowledge the fact that my future’s at risk?’

‘The authority you ask for must come from the crown,’ Taskin said, unequivocal. ‘Why did you come here, and not to King Isendon?’

‘Have you seen the press in the audience hall today?’ the prince’s delegate broke in, scathing. ‘His Majesty has been closeted with subjects all morning. Everyone from wealthy merchants’ hired muscle to uncultured farmhand’s sons—you have the whole countryside importuning the council for their chance to shoulder the adventure.’

‘Princess Anja is beloved,’ Taskin allowed. ‘Is Devall’s crown advocate surprised that Sessalie’s people should respond in heartfelt concern?’ He shifted his regard back to the distraught prince, then made his summary disposition. ‘I’ll give you one of my royal honour guards with a writ for Collain Herald. That should advance your Highness’s petition to the head of the line.’

The commander stood, a clear signal the interview was ended.

Yet his Highness of Devall made no move to arise. His page exchanged a surreptitious glance with a lackey, and the advocate stared primly straight ahead.

‘What else?’ Taskin’s frigid question met a pall of strained quiet.

Then, ‘His Highness, Prince Kailen,’ the heir apparent broached. Discomfited enough to have broken his poise, he twisted the rings on his hands. ‘I’m sorry. Bad manners. But Anja is threatened. Her safety demands forthright speech.’

Taskin’s mien softened, almost paternal with encouragement. ‘Say what you’ve seen. Where lives are at stake, plain words will do nicely’

The Prince of Devall quieted his fretful fingers, then unburdened himself in appeal. ‘Kailen went down to a Falls Gate tavern to make inquiries after his sister. He was still there, and sober, when the servant I sent to buy wine for my retinue saw him. That meeting occurred some time after midnight.’

Taskin absorbed this, each item of testimony set against the report from the rigid-faced guard at his back. The commander was, if anything, too well informed on the outcome of that disgraceful affray: Prince Kailen had been plucked from the Cockatrice Tavern by Mykkael’s duty sergeant, making his rounds. The royal person had been turned over to the palace guard, whence Sessalie’s longsuffering seneschal had seen his Highness to bed.

Devall’s heir apparent squared his neat shoulders, loath to dwell on the indelicacy. ‘I realize Kailen likes to prowl like a tomcat. I also know him as a friend. To speak plainly, he has too much intelligence for the confines of his station. He acts frivolously because the peace and isolation here don’t grant him any chance to test his wits. Appearances aside, I would credit his maturity this much. He loves his sister and this kingdom too well to have drunk himself into a stupor last night.’

‘I would have thought so,’ Taskin agreed, even that trifling confidence divulged with a reluctance that crossed his straight grain. ‘On that score, my inquiry is now being delayed. Let me dispatch an honour guard to see you—’

But the High Prince of Devall raised a magnanimous palm. ‘Spare your guardsmen, commander. I will seek Collain Herald myself.’

Taskin nodded. In person, the heir apparent would make himself heard, and receive the king’s ear without help. Forced to acknowledge the young royal’s earnestness, he unbent and ushered the contingent from Devall to the head of the balcony stair.

While the party made their way out through the wardroom, Taskin watched from the gallery railing. Once the lower door closed and restored his broached privacy, he addressed the guardsman his orders had held at attention throughout Devall’s interview. ‘What do you think, based on those facts you know?’

The man cleared his throat. ‘Facts only? No one saw where Captain Mysh kael went after he slipped our charge at the Middlegate. Prince Kailen was drunk when I set him on horseback. Sergeant Stennis had his Highness borne back to the garrison keep by two men culled from the street watch. No unusual report there—they’d scooped the prince from the arms of a whore, merry on too much whisky. The tavern was one of his usual haunts. Nobody mentioned him, sober.’

The commander held his stance, rod-straight and unspeaking as his survey combed over the vacated wardroom. Reassured that no bit of armour was out of place, and that each weapon rested keen on its rack, he attended the unfinished detail at his back with his usual cryptic handling. ‘Very well, soldier. For your incompetence last night, ride down and find Mysh kael, soonest. On my orders, you’ll tell the garrison captain he’s to see me in person and address each point where his report failed to meet my satisfaction.’

Taskin spun and prowled back to his desk, the buffed braid on his surcoat a scorching gleam of gold, and his censure as painfully piercing. ‘An unnecessary summons, had you kept your watch, soldier. You’ll suffer the fire of that desert-bred’s temper as your due penalty for slacking. If the creature is contrary or difficult, and he should be, keep your professional bearing in hand. Your orders stand: make sure the man comes. Recall that I hold the outstanding matter of the captain’s overdue punishment. When Mysh kael is finished with making you miserable, and only after you’ve brought him to heel through the Highgate, you can sting his pride with that fact, as you choose.’

‘You want him sent into your presence well nettled?’ the guard ventured, then caught Taskin’s glare, and leaped in chastened strides towards the doorway.

The Commander of the Guard subsided behind his gleaming marble desk. He restored the papers sequestered beneath the brick, then finished his vexed thought in solitude. ‘I’ll pressure those war-sharpened instincts, damned right. The captain will answer me straight, if he’s hazed. Easier to read through an unruly rage, and know whether he might be lying.’