The Reluctant Mage Read online

  Ewen watched the swordmaster roam about the Hall, kicking chairs in passing, thudding his fists to the stone walls. He looked like a bear in his anger, rumpled clothing and spiked hair and eyes alight with the desire to kill.

  “Tav, how’s this your fault? Name me one man who ever dreamed—”

  “It’s my fault ’cause I’m the swordmaster!” Tavin shouted. “Sworn to guard the king’s back. To guard Vharne. Youngest swordmaster ever chosen, and why? For my instincts, Ewen. For slaying a beast and knowing evil when it slunk across my path. I was trusted for that, and what did I do? I slept, I did, with evil crawling to my door. If any man deserves a flogging, I’m that man, I am.”

  Stepping in front of him, Ewen took the swordmaster by both shoulders. “Clap tongue, Tavin. Murdo’s king in Vharne. Serve him, you do. Told him to ’ware the wanderers when they first stirred, you did. “Wait,” the king said. Then we had more wanderers and the king still said “Wait.” Then one touched the Vale. Murdo said, “I’ll ride to see this.” Tavin, you said, “Don’t.” You said, “Send me. Send more scouts. Vharne can’t risk its king. Murdo wouldn’t listen.”

  Tavin scowled. “Felt guilty, he did. He knew he should’ve listened sooner. Then he wanted to prove himself, after. But Ewen—” His eyes were haunted. “Things happen. If Padrig had blooded himself in the Eastern Vale—if you’d ridden with Murdo—if you’d ridden instead of Murdo—”

  Then it’s dead now, I’d be. It’d be my ashes in that saddle-bag. My bones burned in the rough.

  He turned away. “I know.”

  “Things happen,” Tavin insisted, tugging him back. “Don’t you flog yourself, son. I’d face what’s coming with you before any man, I would.”

  It should’ve been a comfort, to hear it. But there was no comfort in the Vale. Not any more.

  “And what’s coming, Tav?”

  “What d’you think?” the swordmaster whispered. “It’s the sorcerer.”

  “Morg?” He felt a roil of sickness. “How can that be? Morg’s dead.”

  “With beasts in Vharne?” Tavin cuffed him. “Think, Ewen. They’re his creations, they are. If beasts are walking so is he! The sorcerer’s alive.”

  Ewen tried to step back as the swordmaster, barrel-chest heaving, snatched up a fistful of his stained leather coat. “But Tav—”

  “No!” Holding hard, Tavin shook him. “Boy, don’t you be Murdo’s son now. Don’t you be a fool and close your eyes and ears to me. There’s no time. If we’ve got two beasts in Vharne, we’ve got more than two, I promise. You and me, we’ve got to make our people ready.”

  “Make them ready?” He prised Tavin’s fingers from his coat. “How? When beasts ruled in Vharne nothing Ewen the Elder did saved us. Nothing my father did saved us. Beasts ruled here for generations before that, they did, Swordmaster, and no king could stop them.”

  “Ewen, you slew two of them!” said Tavin, his eyes furious. “More than any king’s done, any man’s done, since the first beast set foot across our borders.”

  “I slew two of them and broke the greatest sword ever forged,” he retorted, desperate. “What do you want from me, Tav? You want me to forge the people of Vharne into a sword so I can break them next, do you?”

  “Boy, they’re going to break be they forged or no!” roared Tavin. “Morg’s beasts hunger for slaughter, they do. There’s not a pile of broken bodies they see that they’ve no wish to pile it higher.”

  “Then what is there to make ready? Save for pits and more pits to burn our dead.”

  “Ewen—” On a groaning sigh, Tavin put himself into one of the empty chairs at the table. “With you Vharne’s king now, there’s need for—”

  “I am not the king, Tavin,” he said hotly. “Not until Murdo’s death jar is brimful with his ashes. I’ll protect the kingdom as I can, I’ll sit in the king’s seat and hear disputes and sign my name, I’ll do what Clovis tells me a king of Vharne must do—but claim the crown before I know my father’s dead? I can’t.”

  Tavin shook his head. “Ewen, don’t do this. You know the truth of things. You know what’s happened to Murdo, you do. He’s Padrig in a ditch with no kind dagger shoved in his heart, he is.”

  “No! Tav, he’s not dead in a ditch unless I find him dead in a ditch.” Shaking, Ewen set his fists on the table and leaned low and close. “The king’s out there somewhere, I say. And I say there’s a chance he’s out there alive. Once I’m bathed, once my belly’s full, I’m taking the best men in the barracks and I’m finding him, I am.”

  “You can’t do that,” said Tavin, brutal. “Ewen, let him go.”

  “Let him go?” he echoed, straightening. “And if you had a son, Tavin, you’d want those words on his lips, would you? ‘Let him go.’ What’s the king to me, then? A lost dog?”

  “Dog or man, it makes no difference,” said Tavin. “He’s lost.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “I do! And, son, so do you.” His breathing harsh, Tavin doused his temper. “Face facts, you have to. If Murdo was alive you’d have found him, you would. If he was alive he’d have heard you calling, even on a spirit path. And if he’d heard you he’d have come running. Only reason he wouldn’t is if he’d run away. Is that what you’re saying, is it? Murdo ran away, with his nephews and his barracks men brain-rotted and beast-hunted and needing him? Son, is that the king?”

  Clap tongue, Tavin. Clap tongue, you old man.

  He pressed one hand to his eyes. “No.”

  “Then it’s you I’ll call king, I will.”

  “No!” He dropped his hand. “Call me king custodian if you must, Tav. But not king.”

  Folding his arms, Tavin sat back in his chair. “You bandy words, Ewen. You make words a pig’s bladder and you pat it about this Hall as though we play a game. King or king custodian, find the difference and show me, if you can.” His eyebrows lifted. “But you can’t, can you?” He pointed to the empty king’s seat. “So there’s where you need to cradle your arse.”

  Beyond the Hall’s one unshuttered window, the sky was fast fading from dusk to dark. Those fat logs still burned in the fireplace but even so, he shivered. He was cold on the inside, where no flames could reach. He felt his eyes sting again. Felt the tears rise and tip onto his cold cheeks.

  He was too tired to stop them.

  “Fuck,” said Tavin. He never swore so much before. Not outside the heat and scuffle of mock-battle in the tiltyard. “Ewen—”

  Shamed, he turned away. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m not,” said Tavin. Shoving his chair back, he stood then came round the table. “Let me see.”

  He let Tavin drag him closer to a smoky lamp and examine him head-to-toe in its yellow, flickering light. “Well, there’s no more of your bones broken and your face is in one piece. But you’re more than tired, you are.” He scowled, suddenly suspicious. “Beast-clawed?”

  “Not badly.”

  “Ewen!” Tavin slapped him, a swordmaster’s reproof.

  He rubbed his cheek. “But that doesn’t help.”

  “Get to the bath house,” Tavin growled. “Scrape that scraggle of beard off, get your stink out of my nostrils, and make sure to spread Shyvie’s salve where it’s needed. Then you’ll eat and put your head on a pillow and come morning we’ll talk of what to do, we will.”

  Bemused, Ewen stared at him. And I’m the king, am I? “Tav, my cousins’ ashes. I—”

  “I’ll see to them,” said Tavin. “And telling the barracks who we’ve lost, and how.”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s me should tell them that, Tav.”

  Another scowl. “I’m swordmaster, I am.”

  “Named you that, have I?” he said, pushing a little, because he was tired of being pushed himself.

  Because I’m tired.

  Tavin pointed a finger. “Boy, I’m warning you—”

  “Clap tongue, Swordmaster,” he said, almost sighing. “You’re right. I need a bath.”

 
; They left the Hall, silent, and walked to the barracks together.

  Ewen found the bath house empty, save for Shyvie and his brats. Noyce had come and gone, and the rest of the barracks men were seeing to barracks business. Let Tavin bark his orders, he could have called for a tub in his own castle chamber—but it seemed pointless to send servants scurrying with buckets when Shyvie’s huge cauldrons were never empty and the barracks’ tubs stood idle with their jars of ready soap.

  The water was so hot it nearly scalded him raw, but he didn’t cool it from the cauldron of cold. He needed it hot, to thaw him. Breath by breath the heat unravelled the knots in his muscles and sinews and lulled the grinding ache in his broken, mended arm. The beast’s claw-marks burned, making him hiss, but of all his pains it was the one that pained him least. A lost father, three dead cousins, and a brother burned to ash. Lenyd’s mother and Nairn in the Eastern Vale were the only family he had left.

  As good as orphaned, that makes me. Spirit be thanked for Tavin.

  Because he was alone he could at last let himself feel exhausted. Let himself admit the cost of riding to find the king and remember clearly, not dreaming, his battle with the beasts. Let himself think about what those beasts meant.

  Morg.

  A small and childish part of himself wanted to pretend none of this was happening, that Padrig wasn’t ashes, and his cousins, that the king wasn’t lost and good barracks men with him, that Morg the ageless sorcerer hadn’t risen from the dead.

  But it was all true, and he had to face it.

  For the first time in a long time he was sorry he lacked a woman. No bastards in the castle, that was the rule, so though he did tumble a willing wench now and then, to keep the king happy he kept himself mostly wenchless. And that was a pity, that was. At least it was a pity tonight. If ever he needed a woman to hold him, to lose himself in, it was now. For there were beasts loose in the kingdom…

  … and my father’s likely dead.

  But sitting naked and dirty in a tub wouldn’t bring Murdo back, or kill his grief—or any beast. Taking up the soap jar, he lathered his hair and body frothy and scrubbed away the dried sweat and grime. Scrubbed away the scabs of his beast-clawing, too, on his back and his shoulders and across his right thigh. That drew blood and hissed air between his teeth. But he had to. Shyvie’s famous ointment liked raw flesh to work on.

  On the wall beside the hanging towels and the box of ointments and liniments, Shyvie kept another box full of freshly stropped razors. Ewen fetched one, climbed back in his bath and scraped his face down to bare skin. Used it to pare his nails, too, fingers and toes, even though Shyvie disapproved of that. Then, with all his cleaning and scraping done, he climbed out of his bath for good, towelled himself dry, and spent five minutes cursing as Shyvie’s wound salve set him on fire.

  When he looked to his clothes, he shuddered. Stinking, torn, filthy and bloodstained—what a fool he was, not to think of sending for a clean shirt and trews. He needed Tavin like a nursemaid. After tossing everything but his boots into the bath house fire, he shoved his bare feet into the boots, smothered himself in towels and clopped his way back up to the castle to find a meal first, then his bed.

  The barracks men who saw him stopped and stared, but didn’t laugh. And that was clever, for he was in no laughing mood.

  Early the next morning, after breakfast, he met in the Hall with Tavin and Clovis to talk with them about saving Vharne.

  The beast horns and tusks and talons he’d brought home from the rough had remained overnight on the table. Waiting for Clovis to finish setting out his ink and paper, he brooded at the filthy things, refusing to be intimidated.

  If I killed two of you I can kill two more, I can. If I have to, I’ll kill two hundred. Hurt my people of Vharne and I’ll kill you all, I will.

  But that was bluster, and he knew it.

  Clovis inked his quill, then tapped it almost dry. The secretary’s nerve was holding well enough, even with the beast parts sitting so near. Any grief he felt for the king was buttoned neat inside his shirt.

  He glanced up. “If there’s something you need to keep between us only, Highness, say the word and I won’t record it.”

  “Good. So—” Ewen looked from the secretary to Tavin, seated at his right hand. “First we need more scouts, I say. Those beasts came from somewhere, they did. Ranoush, or Manemli. I favour Ranoush. It was closest.” Despite that hot bath and a night in his own bed, his neck was aching. He rubbed at it hard, digging his fingers into the knotted muscles. “Those borders need regular scouting, they do. And the border with Iringa. As much rough country as we can cover, I say. How fast can you train new scouts, Tavin?”

  “How fast can you find them?” Tavin countered. “If a man or woman can sit a horse without blistering arse or falling off at a sneeze—if they know a bit of knives and they’re not so squeamish they can’t kill what needs killing—then I can train them to scouting a whisker inside a week, I can.”

  That was fast, even for Tavin. It’s glad I am my training’s done with. “Clovis, it’s in law for me to command and not recruit, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” said the secretary, after a moment. “In times of dire need. A proclamation from the seat, it’s called.”

  And if these times aren’t dire they never have been, I say.

  “Then here’s me, proclaiming,” he said. “How many to start with, Swordmaster?”

  Tavin grunted. “Twenty-five. We’ll need more, but I say let’s not fright folk too much. Not yet.”

  No. Not yet. “We’ll word the order last thing, Clovis. Swordmaster, what of the barracks?”

  “I’ve men to see the Vale protected,” Tavin said, his gaze narrowing. “I could use more.”

  Of course he could, with so many recently lost. “And you’ll get them. But it’s beyond the Vale I’m thinking about, Tav. Those villages in the rough. The folk I met out there…” He shook his head. “There’s no barracks for them. And there’s no stand a swordless man can take against a beast.”

  Tavin pulled a face. “Even with a sword, that stand’s not likely, boy. If it was I’d not be called Mighty Tavin Blood-drinker from one end of Vharne to the other, I wouldn’t.”

  “I know,” he said, impatient. “But how can I leave those folk in the rough defenceless? If there are beasts in Ranoush or Manemli and they cross into Vharne or chase the folk there across the borders to hide in our rough country—”

  “So you want to proclaim scouts and barracks men, do you? And you want me to train them, then send them back to the rough?” Tavin slumped in his chair. “Train them with me, you can.”

  He tried to smile. “I will.”

  “And barracks them where? There’s no time or spare hands to build our barracks bigger. Not when the men need to be training for beasts.”

  He knew that, too. He’d done some thinking since his bath. “They can take beds in the Vale.”

  Clovis choked a little. “Turn Vale folk out of their homes, Highness?”

  “Turn them out? No,” he said, mildly enough. “But there’s no harm sharing a roof can do.”

  Clovis’s raised eyebrows said he didn’t agree.

  Ignoring that, Ewen turned again to Tavin. “A week to train new scouts, you say. How long for new barracks men?”

  “Ewen—” Tavin sighed. He’d reached for a beast tusk, and was running his finger over and over its sharp, wicked curve. “Depends what you mean by train, it does. To hold a sword right way up, that’s one thing. How not to cut their own legs off at the knees or the next man’s head when they’re skirmishing? That’s another, it is.”

  Oh. “You’re saying it can’t be done? The beasts can’t be fought?”

  “No. They can be fought.”

  “But not beaten.”

  Tavin’s eyes were bleak. “Not by some poor fool dragged out of the rough and given a week or three to learn swordplay.”

  He was right. That would never work. But I can’t abandon them. The d
esperate faces of the folk in Neem haunted his dreams, too.

  “Only we can’t tell them that,” Tavin added, and tossed the beast tusk onto the table. Clovis winced. “They have to think there’s a chance, they do. You take hope from a man, son, best you slide a dagger ’cross his throat while you’re about it.”

  Not tell them how poor their chances would be?

  “Tav, I can’t lie to Vharne’s people.”

  The swordmaster shrugged. “Ewen, sometimes a lie is the kindest thing you can tell a man. Sometimes if you tell him the lie often enough it’ll turn into truth. You want to ride from one side of Vharne to the other telling folk to turn up their toes, it’s all over, they’re going to die?”

  “Of course not!”

  Another shrug. “Then you tell them it’s time to pick up a sword, or a pitchfork, or a toasting fork if that’s all they’ve got. You tell them Vharne is their home, you do, and the time’s on them to fight for it.”

  “Against beasts,” he said, and felt the ache stir in his arm. In his heart, for the bloodshed he knew was coming.

  “If it’s beasts come to kill them?” Tavin’s bleak eyes flickered full of shadows. “Yes, son. Against beasts.”

  He looked at Clovis, who’d put his quill down and was staring at his partly inked paper. Now his grief was showing. Now his hidden pain was revealed.

  His own grief spiked him. I had Blood-drinker and years of training and I nearly died. “Tav, it’s going to be a slaughter.”

  That made the swordmaster laugh, grimly. “Ewen, it’ll be a slaughter whether they’re holding swords or twigs.”

  “Then it’s best they’re holding swords,” he said, feeling sick. “But if we’re asking folk in the Vale to share their beds and their floors, we’ll have men from the rough in the castle, too. If I can’t live with what I’m asking the Vale to do then I’ve got no right to ask it, I say.”

  Tavin’s pinched lips softened into a smile. “Spoken like a king, that was.”