Hal’s few days at home were less than satisfying. None of the people he wanted to see were there, and the familiar surroundings only brought back memories of what he stood to lose. His mother had always taken great pride in her gardens. Now the borders were blurred, overrun by thistle, the flowers blown and gone to seed.
At the center stood the massive spreading white oak, symbol of their house. Legend said that it predated the Breaking and the Montaigne line of kings. His little sister Harper used to lurk within its branches to avoid her scripture tutor and to intercept her brothers on their way to adventures outside the walls. Eventually, she talked the blacksmith’s boy into setting iron bars into the wall of the back garden so that she could engineer her own escapes.
No doubt, even now, she was scheming to escape her current predicament.
Wait for me, Harper, Hal thought. He would not rest until he’d got them back.
The prospect of seeing the empress’s hordes come riding down the western slopes of the Heartfangs lent a special urgency to his mission. It was fortunate that the empress’s obsession with finding the magemarked busker had sent her north instead of south. But he was under no illusion that she would be satisfied with the Fells.
His father had been in the field for months, so Hal was swarmed with petitioners and requests to settle disputes or make decisions on matters that had been deferred for too long. He’d spent so much time away that he was of little help in directing the household or answering questions from the farm managers and rent collectors. He was, however, a convenient target for complaints about shortages of, well, nearly everything, from wine to salt to fodder to men to work in the fields.
This even though the larders were overflowing compared to what he’d seen in the queendom of the Fells.
Rolande was a nuisance as well. Since Hal was the highest-ranking person he could get at, the thaneling was constantly at his heels, offering silly advice on all topics.
At least Rolande had birds on hand to communicate with the rebel forces. Hal sent a message to his father in the code they’d used since he was a boy.
It’s Halston. I’m at White Oaks. Orders?
A message came back the next day, in his father’s usual effusive style.
Glad to hear it. You’re needed. Report to Temple Church as soon as able.
As soon as Hal could extract himself, he was riding hard toward Temple Church, where the rebellious thanes had gathered. Rolande was, of course, eager to come along, but Hal ordered him to stay behind on pain of court-martial.
Temple Church was a good strategic position—astride the North Road so that they had a good road straight to the enemy should they choose to use it. The same could be said for the king’s forces, of course. Prior to the fall of Delphi, such a position would also have blocked access to the weapons factories and mines in the north.
Now, with Delphi at their backs, hills to the east, and Tamron Forest to their west, it wouldn’t be easy to come at the thanes from any direction other than the south.
Ordinarily, Hal might have actually looked forward to fighting in the flatlands for the first time in a long time. But this time, he’d be pushing for diplomacy and negotiation, tasks he had no skills for.
There had always been a small garrison house and other military facilities at Temple Church. Hal arrived after sunset, and it seemed that campfires and tents spread across the plains as far as he could see. That was good news—up to a point. Armies are not good at waiting around with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Hal guessed that the command post would be in the garrison house; if not, those posted there would be able to tell him where to find his father.
As it happened, he didn’t have to do any fast talking to get in to see his father. The first person he encountered after handing off his horse was Jan Rives, who was walking the paddocks, a list in his hand. Rives had been one of the first officers Hal served under when he joined the army, before he’d got his growth.
“Why, it’s Little Hal, I believe,” Rives said, a smile breaking across his face. “Lord Matelon told me that you’d survived that hellhole in Delphi after all.”
After Rives had lost an arm during an uprising in Bruinswallow, Lord Matelon had taken him on as quartermaster for White Oaks. Hal still called him Sergeant, and Rives still called him Little Hal, though Hal towered over him now.
Rives was the only one allowed to call him that, as Hal had made clear to some of his fellow soldiers who’d tried to follow suit.
“Sergeant Rives,” Hal said, grinning and clapping him on the back. “Can you tell me where to find my father?”
“He’s in with some of the other lords, fighting toe to toe as usual,” Rives said. “It’ll do him good to see you.”
“I hope so,” Hal said, wishing he could meet privately with his father and win him over before springing his news on the other thanes.
He heard voices before he reached the door of the meeting room.
“My men need to get home and into the fields or we’ll have no harvest at all this year,” someone was saying. It was a voice Hal didn’t recognize. “The buds are already breaking, and with the vines not properly trellised, the quality of the—”
“Blood of the Martyr, DeLacroix, can you give it a rest?” That was his father’s unmistakable bass rumble. So the first speaker was Pascal DeLacroix, Rolande’s father, until recently a firm ally of the king. “If we don’t strike now, when we have the advantage, you won’t have to worry about your swiving harvest this fall. Someone else will be drinking your wine.”
“All I’m asking for is a few weeks to get the estates in order,” DeLacroix said, his tone suggesting that he was trying to reason with the unreasonable. “I don’t understand why you say we have the advantage when the king still holds our families hostage. We should attempt to negotiate their release before we—”
“Jarat is stalling,” Matelon growled. “We both know that. He wants to put us off until the marching season is over in the north so he can commit his full army to dealing with us. Better to go now, when his forces are divided.”
Bloody hell, Hal thought. I’m coming in on the wrong side already. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door.
There were a half dozen thanes in the room, and all heads turned as he entered. He recognized DeLacroix, young Lord Heresford, Lord Henri Tourant, and his father, huddled around a battered wooden table. Dirty cups and plates around them suggested they had been at it for a while.
Hal brought his fist to his chest in a salute. “Captain Halston Matelon, reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.
Wood scraped on wood as his father shoved his chair back and stood. He crossed the room and roughly embraced Hal, murmuring in his ear, “Good to have you home, Son.” Holding him out at arm’s length, he looked him up and down. “You need a shave,” he said.
“I know, sir,” Hal said. “But you said to come as soon as I was able.”
Sliding his arm around Hal, Matelon turned him to face the other thanes. “I believe you all know my son Captain Matelon,” he said. “He was taken prisoner in the fall of Delphi. By the grace of the Maker, he’s escaped and come back to us.”
They all stared at him. From the look on their faces, none of the others had been alerted to his recent resurrection. Which meant that his father didn’t trust any of them to know.
Finally, DeLacroix said, “I was told that you and everyone under your command were killed at Delphi.”
“A few of us were taken prisoner, sir,” Hal said.
“My son Armond was with you at Delphi,” Tourant said eagerly. “Was he captured as well?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Hal said. “I didn’t see him among the prisoners, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t survive. There were thirty men being held in Delphi, but there may have been some prisoners held separately from me.”
“You didn’t even ask about the soldiers in your own command?” DeLacroix raised an eyebrow. DeLacroix, who’d managed to avoid any military service up to now.
Wrestling with his temper, Hal gritted his teeth. “I did ask, and I was told that there were few survivors,” he said. “I didn’t know whether to believe them or not. Then I was moved to Chalk Cliffs, where I was the only Ardenine prisoner.”
“And you’ve been a captive in the north for three months?” It was as if DeLacroix was suggesting that any soldier worth his salt would have escaped before now. As if Hal had taken advantage of the situation to enjoy a three-month vacation. “And now you’re the only one to escape.” The thane tapped his fingers together as if this was significant.
“Quit interrogating him,” Heresford said. “We should be welcoming him home, not grilling him about how he came to survive. We’re going to need him if it comes to a fight with Jarat.”
“It will come to a fight, Heresford, you know it will,” Matelon said. “I’ve seen nothing in the son that makes me think otherwise.”
“Half the boy king’s army will come over to us when they find out Captain Matelon is with us,” Heresford said, grinning.
Hal cleared his throat. “I have some news about events in the north that might have bearing on a decision about whether this is the right time to take the fight to King Jarat.”
Hal’s father raised both hands, giving Hal a warning look. “Gentlemen, we’ve been at it since early this morning,” he said. “This is a good time to break for the day, so we can all take a piss and have a bite and I can debrief my son about events in the north. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning.”