Ghost in the Yew: Volume One of the Vesteal Series Read online

He rose, straightened his clothes, and extended his hand toward me. It was wrapped with a brown cloth.

  I stood and shook the honest man’s hand.

  “Welcome to Urnedi, Lord Barok.”

  “Well met, honorable Reeve.”

  We both sat back down and were quiet for a time until heavy boots stomped up the stairs. I turned and said a good morning to my Alsman.

  He laughed. “Morning? That ended some time ago.”

  Everything about him was different. His voice was clear and strong and the naked barrel of his hairy chest was covered with chips of wood and sweat.

  Urs asked, “Did you finish off the rest of those logs?”

  “I did. I think I will take a saw to a few more trees tomorrow. The exercise makes for a good start to the day.”

  “Interesting way for an alsman to spend his time,” I said.

  He flicked a woodchip off his shoulder. I was about to ask if Dia was responsible for his transformation but did not need to. I said instead, “She has saved us both it would seem.”

  “That she did, my lord. That she most certainly did.”

  I remembered a piece of business she had pointed me toward and asked the reeve to retrieve the armory inventory. He returned with a familiar leather case, and I recalled as well that Leger had a document for me to sign. I turned, but he’d crossed to the writing desk and was on his way back with a neatly written document and a wooden box that contained a slate stone, writing brush, and water bowl. He dipped his finger in the bowl, let the drops fall into the groove upon the ink stone, and rubbed a stone stick into the groove until the water became a crisp black ink. I took the brush, picked up some of the ink, and signed Dia’s pledge.

  “Have you seen my seal?” I asked before I saw that he’d set the small silver case on the table. I opened it, withdrew the square of carved white stone, and pressed the carved end into the moist pad of red ink that lined the lid. I stamped the sheet and blew on it once before I examined the mark. The table had not been a good surface to use, but the two symbols of my name were legible. I closed the case with a satisfying click.

  “Fighting stag?” Urs asked.

  I was startled. “Who taught you how to read the priest’s script?”

  “Oh, not me. Sahin knows it. I asked him what your name meant. Did he get it wrong?”

  “Close. A Yentif is a bull caribou. Barok means to charge—not that anyone cares except our father. He grew up in Berm hunting the things, wearing their fur all winter long. I find them noisome.”

  “I’ve never seen one,” Urs said.

  “Imagine a monstrous deer that spends half the year smelling like wet pelt and the rest like a wet pelt in rut.”

  Leger laughed, nodded, and laughed some more.

  I looked back at Leger’s document. It bore the date of my exile. He did not miss a detail. I set the document aside and retrieved the armory inventory.

  “I am going to wash up,” the alsman volunteered. It was information I simply did not want to have, and remembered all the servants I’d dismissed for speaking to me. I was halfway into another pang of guilt when I decided I did not need to read the inventory again.

  “Hold on a moment, Leger. You will want to do that later. Go find Gern and that axe of yours.”

  He nodded and trotted down.

  “What are you going to do?” Urs asked.

  “Something you’ve wanted to do for some time,” I replied and handed the brush and wooden box to Urs. “I need you to write something for me.”

  He moved to the writing table and pulled a clean sheet of vellum from a thin drawer.

  “Date it and title it Proclamation.”

  He set his left hand upon his right wrist and moved the brush upon the sheet, dipping it back into the ink stone three times before finishing.

  I spoke my words at the speed he could write them. “On this day, I, Barok Yentif, Prince of Zoviya and Arilas of Enhedu, declare any previous decree barring the armory of Urnedi, null, and any reason for its closure invalid.”

  Urs wrote each word with such care I was warmed by his effort. He set down the brush and blew upon the sheet. It was not until he had stepped aside and gestured for me to sign it that I saw the tremendous tremble in his hands. I crossed and added my signature with a flourish before pressing my mark upon the sheet. The case clicked shut, and I set it on the corner of the table.

  It seemed to belong there.

  24

  Alsman Leger Mertone

  The Afternoon of the 92nd

  I found Gern behind the stable with a stout hatchet in one hand and a chicken in the other. A pair of hogs waited in the woods for their chance at scraps.

  “Afternoon, Alsman,” he said with that same wide smile. I scowled at him for it, and he straightened his face.

  “Barok wishes to speak with you.”

  He let the bird go and followed me back. When I detoured to retrieve the wood axe he stopped. “Is everything all right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The young man gave the axe a long look. “He’s not back to the way he was already, is he?”

  I paused. He feared that Barok had sent me to kill him. “You think his state of mind so temporary?”

  “After what we saw in the forest, I do not know what to think, but the man who arrived here yesterday and the man I had breakfast with are two different people. It is like he is possessed.”

  “You talk to the wrong man of ghosts and magic.”

  “So he doesn’t want to kill me?”

  “Does he have a reason to?”

  “A Zoviyan prince might take exception to some of the things I said.”

  I laughed at the many hundreds of ways a prince could have been offended. “I wouldn’t follow such an order, and for now he is as I would have him be. If he starts acting like his father’s son again, we’ll tie him to a horse and take him back beneath the trees.”

  He nodded at that, and we trotted up to see what the prince had in mind for the axe. We found Barok and Urs waiting on the landing before the locked armory door. I expected Barok to complain about his wounded face or the treatment he had received, but all he did was wave Gern up.

  “Guardsman, would you be so kind as to break down this door? I do believe someone has locked you out of your quarters.”

  “Yes, my lord,” he said with enthusiasm. I handed him the axe, and we stepped up and down the stairs out of his way. He rolled his shoulders once before he stepped toward the door with purpose and cleaved it with such a stroke that its center timber cracked.

  “That will do,” I told him after he yanked the axe free. Then I took two steps toward the door and planted my boot upon the split timber. The door flexed, the lock failed, and the heavy door exploded open. Pieces of the lock bounced with metal clanks deep into the dark stone space.

  Barok and Gern looked very young just then, a pair of boys really. I guessed Gern to be the oldest of the pair when he managed to force away his grin first.

  “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”

  It took Gern a moment to realize the prince was speaking to him and another for it to sink in that he had just been promoted. He collected himself, stepped into the darkness, and opened shutters to reveal a wide archers’ hallway. It was bisected by a narrower one that reached left toward the center of the keep, and we found three closed doors at the far end. Dust rose with each fall of our feet.

  I went left and Gern right, and we opened more shutters in the rooms beyond. Gern made soft exclamations, and we moved to join him in the fabled armory of Urnedi. I was speechless. Thick-posted shelves circled the entire room and each was stacked with shields, helms, coats of mail, unstrung bows, long spears, and swords. In the center of the room were three wide barrels full of arrows. Most of it was of poor and degraded quality, but there was enough to outfit many men.

  “Why would they leave it all here?” Barok asked.

  “Because the garrison didn’t go all at once,” Urs said. “Since I was Gern’s
age, word would arrive every year to let another man or three go. When the previous arilas ordered the garrison disbanded and the barracks locked, all that was left was an old sergeant who kept two local lads busy cleaning it all. I kind of miss the fastidious old badger. He was sad to leave it all behind. He tried to convince the envoy to hire some wagons to cart it all back, but the man didn’t have the authority to spend the any coin. He just locked the door and left.”

  Barok turned to me. “And the room across the hall?”

  “I believe it would be the lieutenant’s quarters.”

  Gern’s posture straightened, and we followed him across. It was half as deep as the armory and contained only a cot and table. A fireplace set in the far corner shared its hearth with the room on the other side, undoubtedly the barracks. Gern planted his hands on his hips. He saw none of his quarter’s poorer qualities.

  Barok said to him, “You should inspect your barracks.”

  Gern saluted and made his way down to the last door and into the black space beyond. Back the other way, half of Urnedi was moving to join us, raising clouds of dust as they came. We all followed Gern into the barracks while he opened six arrow loop shutters on the far wall and two on either end. Two long tables and their chairs cluttered the center of the space, and tall square-posted triple-bunks lined the walls between the martial windows.

  It was an eerie sight. If the walls had been tan instead of dark gray, the space would have been identical to any of a dozen I had called home at one time or another.

  “You can sleep sixty in here. I had no idea.”

  “Fifty-seven,” I said while I circled the space. What impressed me most was how well the shutters had kept out the weather. The old sergeant had kept himself busy. The keep would have been in ruins if rain and wind had made its way into that space.

  “Lieutenant,” Barok said as he got ready to flee the rising dust, “you will get this space cleaned and the armor and weapons into proper care. You will also increase your garrison to a full troop of fourteen men, same pay. Yours is doubled. See Sahin for recommendations. If you need help with the cleaning, see the matron. Petition me for funds as needed.”

  He bowed, but then looked around unsure what to do first. I left him to work it out on his own and fell in line with the coughing crowd. I waited by the broken door while the rest made their way outside to bang the dust from their clothing. Barok stepped in next to me.

  We listened to Gern banging something, perhaps a blanket, upon the tables, floor, and beds. The breeze through the space began to waft great clouds of dust into the archer’s hallway, and through the arrow-loops onto those outside. The crowd cursed, I coughed, and Barok laughed.

  I said to him, “I am not sure if you were supposed to do that.”

  “Who will notice? It will be next spring before we have a single visitor.”

  “True.”

  “And I could not let the insult of a locked door remain another day.”

  I shook my head. He could not have been more different.

  “What?” he asked. “You disagree with my sentiment?”

  “No. Not at all. It is just very hard to believe that a Yentif said it.”

  He shot me a hateful look and began to protest, but his fury vanished as fast as it had come. He sighed. “I share my head with others.”

  “The ghosts?”

  “Yes. I’m no longer sure who I am.”

  “Whoever you are, we hope it lasts.”

  “So do the ghosts,” he said sadly, and I had to surrender a bit of sympathy, Yentif though he was.

  “Why not be both?” I said, but as I heard the words I was not entirely sure what I meant.

  Barok worked his jaw and eyebrows on that one, too, but apparently got more from it than I had. “A Deyalu education married with Edonian wisdom and judgment?”

  It sounded like a load of crap to me, but the prince seemed pleased, so I decided to play along. I smiled, nodded, and slapped him heartily on the back.

  I flinched.

  Had I just struck a Yentif? What has gotten into me?

  But stranger than it happening was that Barok did not seem to mind it. He instead gave me a nod like a captain wholly accepting his sergeant’s suggestion and led me up to his apartment. Once there, he snatched one of his falcon rocks off the fireplace mantel and jammed it into a pocket before lifting his broadsword out of the trunks at the foot of the bed.

  “This is yours now,” he stated, pushed the weapon into my hands, and started back out of the room. It took me a long moment to get moving after him. I had put the blade out of my mind, thinking it too much to ask. But now that I had hold of it again, I would be damned if I ever let it leave my side again. It was the finest blade I had ever held, and wearing it again was like being given permission to feel right and good about the world.

  I looked forward to the next time I crossed paths with Minister Sikhek. Such a blade was made for splitting barbute helmets and punching holes in breastplates. I tapped the pummel with my fist and trotted after the prince.

  I found him in the great hall where Dia and a number of other women who had been smart enough to stay clear of the barracks. She smiled coyly at my sword, and the morning began to make more sense. I tipped my head to her in thanks.

  “Having fun, boys?” the old cook teased. They laughed, and I clenched my jaw in anticipation of a Yentif explosion. Barok smiled instead.

  “Before you get into anything else,” Dia added, “Sahin is waiting for you outside.”

  “Yes. Yes, indeed. Thank you for the reminder,” he said, bowed abruptly, and left us to what was sure to be a matron’s well-planned day.

  25

  Arilas Barok Yentif

  I found Sahin alone at the bottom of the carriageway steps, but as I moved down to join him, a great fistful of memories smashed through my skull. Through closed eyes I saw great high walls, stately buildings, and thousands of people moving along clean stone streets. But then fire and arrows cut the air, and the quick urgencies of battle became the hollowing despair of defeat. This had been Katat, Edonia’s capital. I looked back at the keep, and the visions crumbled.

  Sahin’s voice startled me.

  “Pardon?”

  “You wanted to know about Urnedi?” he asked, and I nodded, eager to understand why Kyoden did not seem to know of it. Sahin said, “Zoviya built it to keep watch upon Enhedu. They filled it with priests and soldiers, but the Chaukai stayed hidden. The priests lost interest, and the watch tired and departed.”

  “Why do you let it remain?”

  “The keep? It was built by Edonian slaves. To destroy their honest craftsmanship would be a crime. We let the chapel upon the roof rot and fall, but the rest stays.”

  “What of Katat, Edonia’s capital? How can none of it be left?”

  “Zoviya enslaved the last of the Edonians and put them to work gathering up Enhedu’s riches to be carried south. Then they dismantled its cities and tossed every stone they could into the sea. Most of those who survived the looting died working in the mountains.”

  I had a vision of deep mines of silver and lead along the mountain’s heavy road and northern face.

  “What of the mines now?” I asked urgently.

  “All empty, spent. I have visited them all. They are tombs now for the people who died carving the last of the ore from them. Kyoden used to whisper to us of mines he ordered hidden when he knew he could not keep the Zoviyans out of Enhedu. But all were found.”

  “Could there still be some you missed or places where new mines could be dug?”

  “I do not think so. The hunting lodges Urs has record of were actually Yentif prospectors. They scratched at the mountain and panned its rivers for ten years before they gave up. Anything a simple mine can get has been got.”

  We fell silent, and the fragrances of so much life quickened my pulse and helped set aside the sorrow of history. Sahin started walking, and I followed him deep into the forest. We came to a clearing edged by a pa
ir of fallen trees. The rotting lengths were covered with moss and fungus, and beyond them the cedar and spruce stood stately. The forest floor was thick with ferns and blackberries. The ground was littered with the dismantled food of squirrels, and at the far end a single old birch stood dying, its surface gouged by the scrape of countless deer. The place seemed a cathedral.

  Sahin walked a slow course around the tree.

  I asked, “Your grandfather saved Irisa?”

  “His great-grandfather’s great-grand uncle, but yes,” he replied. “We have kept Kyoden’s heirs hidden and safe for fourteen generations, but they were never great in number. Your mother was the only living Vesteal when she was taken from us.”

  There was a note to his voice that made me question his version of events. I wondered if it was such an accident my father had discovered my mother’s beauty. What better place to hide the bloodline than inside the house of its hunters? But as I thought this, the ghosts gathered to me quickly, and Kyoden’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Leave alone the secrets of the Chaukai. They are not for you.’

  The visitation left me dizzy, and I was slow to steady.

  Sahin, though, had not moved, lost in his own thoughts. When he did look back across at me, he asked solemnly, “Can you tell me of her? Is she well?”

  I searched for words, but there was only one that needed saying.

  “Murdered.”

  Sahin blinked at me once in disbelief, but then growled, fell to his knees, and punched the birch as hard as he could. He folded around the pain of his bloodied knuckles.

  A hundred men’s anger rose in me just as deep and hard, but a king’s measured words pushed past it all. “Rise, Chaukai. You are not responsible for it, and her killer has a name.”

  Sahin turned his head up slowly, his body tense. “Who.”

  “Yarik Yentif.”

  His anger seemed ready to flare again but gave way. He nodded tiredly instead, as if having long ago guessed this day would come. He stood slowly, walked another course around the birch, and set his bloodied hand upon the marks of the deer.