Leda

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Beckoning Moors

"I thought you'd come." Marta gazed out across the moors. From here, high on Berasé's eastern tower, she watched the near solid pall of smoke thrusting ever upwards into the dull afternoon sky. She'd forced herself to listen to the voices that carried on the wind: children's cries, women's howls, the scream of men cut down where they stood and the shrill shriek of horses. But now the hiss and crack of burning timber was all that remained. The constant surge of flames mingled with sounds to which she was more accustomed: wind gusting through the bare branches of trees, the raw cry of a hawk. It were as if two worlds or two different times had collided: the moors and woods oblivious to the horror of Hannac's fall. She'd thought Hannac a part of the landscape all these years. She'd been wrong.

"Are we to meet the same fate?" she asked, her eyes still fixed on the smoke. A part of her had died in that fire. She felt old suddenly, hollowed out and exhausted.

"Kneel before your Emperor!"

Of the two men on the tower, one seemed no more than a boy, with a pale, pasty complexion and girlish lips. She was reminded of blood red rose petals. He looked too frail to raise a sword, although she supposed him capable of it, as he'd been so determined to wage war against the North. Beside him stood a figure who might have been hewn from granite, were it not for his eyes which darted ceaselessly, taking in Marta, Berasé and her terrified people huddled in the courtyard below.

"When I know which of you two fine gentlemen he is, I'll do so," she said at last.

The boy's face rippled with fury; his defender remained impassive. Castor curled his fists. "Impudent witch."

With an inward smile, Marta knelt. "I've been called worse ˗ your Majesty."

He was easily injured then. As fragile as ice on Brennac's surface during the spring thaw. She rose with difficulty: joints cracking, a bolt of pain claiming her knees and hips. At least, Franc, she thought, you were spared the indignities of old age.

"I suppose you surprised yourself, young man?"

"How dare you!" Castor blanched, shaking with rage.

"Oh, I dare. When you get to my age, you'll see there's not much that you won't dare to do. I suppose hiring men to murder your aunt or string up a few folks in Colvé was easy enough. I mean you never actually saw them die, did you? But massacring a fort ˗ burning children alive ˗ that takes a bit more resolve, a bit more steel. Did you stay to listen to their screaming, Castor? Did you watch? Or did they hurry you out of there so you wouldn't have to?"

"Silence!"

"I won't be silenced!" Marta roared. "You're here to kill me anyway boy, so I'll have my say. That's more justice than most you've murdered have received."

"I will have obedience...loyalty."

"And you think loyalty can be found on the point of a sword? Or in the heat of a fire? Do you think Hal Hannac ... wherever she is now will become your loyal subject because you've burnt her home and massacred her tenants?"

Castor seemed to consider this for the first time, his eyes clouding with uncertainty. "She's a traitor. She'll be dead too before the winter."

"You're so sure of that? You don't know the Hannacs as I've known them. Hal, like her father before her, was loyal to your uncle ˗ the Hannacs are fierce in their loyalties. She could have been your greatest ally if you'd only understood that. They all could have ˗ Leda, Meracad, even myself."

"I don't request your friendship, woman, I demand your allegiance."

"And that's where you're mistaken."

"Shall I kill her now, your Majesty?" Castor's guard took a step towards her. Cold stone pressed into Marta's back. She threw a glance over the wall. The moors beckoned.

"No. Not yet." Castor folded his arms, adopting a mask of scorn. "I see Mistress Ilenga enjoys her role as imperial advisor. Let her keep it ˗ I'd swear it's a position she'll now hold for life."

For some reason she thought of Franc as a young man: riding out across the moors with a hawk on his arm. He'd often make the pretence at hunting; winding his way towards Berasé as if by chance.

"As I said, your Majesty, Hal is loyal to her friends. I'd wager she's gaining the help of a lot of them this very minute."

Castor shook his head and snorted with contempt. "My men will hunt her down before long. And all the other traitors who sought to evade my justice."

"Before she's had the chance to put an army together?"

"Don't be ridiculous, woman."

"I'm not. As I said, I've had the privilege of knowing the Hannacs all these years. And it has been a privilege." Franc was out there on the moors, looking for her. She felt it. "They're a stubborn, determined pack, the lot of them. Once they've set their minds to a thing, they'll see it done. And I wouldn't be surprised if Hal's set her mind on being a real rebel, seeing as how you've turned her into one." Just a moment, Franc. I'll only be a moment.

Clearly Castor, so bewitched by his own power and authority, had never even thought that Hal might be capable of rebellion. That, having been charged with treason, having evaded execution, her home destroyed, her people massacred, that Hal Hannac of all people would settle for a life on the run? The Emperor was evidently an idiot as well as a tyrant, for he now gazed at her with something akin to fear in his eyes.

"She'll come for you, Castor," Marta said. "She'll make you pay for what you've done."

The guard was drawing his sword. She looked down again at the heather swaying on the wind. "She'll unite all those whose lives you've ruined, anyone who's lost their loved ones or their homes because of you."

The sword was drawn.

"If I were you, lad, I'd sleep with one eye open from now on."

The guard was moving towards her. Castor made no attempt to stop him; the sword was raised.

We made our promises, Franc. It's time. He was out there on the moors, and he was waiting. There was wind and sky and the bruised purple of the heather. And then there was silence.