XXXII
Let us now turn our attention back to Klagenn. Word of Gaymono’s failure to avenge his father did not come home until he had been dead for some two and a half months, and it came in the mouth of a woman called Yewe, who was a professional trader. She had recently been to deal with the Lord of Pearmol, and though he had afforded her no consideration, she had heard of the deaths of two northerners who picked a fight with him and paid the price. At once, her ears pricked up.
‘This,’ she said, ‘might yet prove to have been a profitable venture.’
Yewe tried to glean as much knowledge about the matter as she could, but no one could give her much more than one name alone: Gaylodho the Earl.
In the days since Gaylodho’s death, Meola had become the most prominent person at Klagenn, having inherited his house and much of his wealth. She was accordingly the highest authority in the town, and when Yewe arrived and asked to be shown to the person in charge, she was brought to Meola.
Meola asked her who she was and why she had come.
‘I have heard some interesting things,’ said Yewe, ‘concerning Gaylodho the Earl. Tell me, did you know him?’
‘I knew him,’ said Meola. ‘He was my husband.’
‘Then tell me this: have any relatives of yours made their way southwards to Pearmol of late?’
‘Two of his relatives, yes, though I do not consider them to be mine. They were his son, Gaymono, and Gaymono’s wife, Broyndea. I have been told they ended up heading to Samnew, though we know nothing of what came to pass thereafter. Why do you ask about this?’
‘I know what happened. What would you pay for my knowledge?’
‘Nothing. I wish to think no more of them than I must.’
As Meola said this, an elderly woman came into the room. She was called Pala, and she was Broyndea’s grandmother.
‘Cheapskate,’ she said. ‘Rotten, sodden cheapskate. Where is your honour? Where is your love for your kinsfolk? If you do not pay this woman and hear her knowledge, such strife will strangle your household that you will forever regret it. And I know this to be true, for I shall sow the seeds myself.’
‘If you insist,’ said Meola. ‘Tell me what you know, Yewe woman, and I will reward you accordingly.’
Then they agreed a price, and Yewe said that Gaymono and Broyndea had taken up arms against Karvalo, Lord of Pearmol, and that both had died with neither honour nor glory.
‘Oh!’ said Pala, and she went weeping from the house.
‘This,’ said Meola, ‘is saddening news. How woeful it is that my husband should lie yet unavenged, that his son’s every effort should amount to such a paltry attempt at justice. It is disgraceful.’
Yewe asked for her payment, but Meola refused.
‘If you think I will pay you for so souring my mood,’ she said, ‘you had best buy yourself a brain.’
Then she shooed Yewe from the house, who sailed away from Klagenn and out of the story.
In the following days, Meola spent much time considering her options. She thought she might lay the matter of vengeance aside and live the rest of her life as best she could without it, but she could not bring herself to that. No, when she went outside one evening, sat before Gaylodho’s burial stone, and looked up the valley, she knew in her heart that she could not abide inaction. Watching the sunset, she saw the evening twilight filling the woods where once Asfoa’s house had stood, and where her husband was murdered.
‘The sun has set,’ she said, ‘but my spirit will not sink likewise. Justice must be done.’
If anyone could force Karvalo to yield the murderer, Meola determined, it would surely be the king, and so she embarked on a journey to visit each of the earls and encourage them to demand that the king intervene in the matter. She first visited Bealnew, where Beyla still held the earldom, and requested lodging in her house. Being a person of high status, she was granted that pleasure, and she spent the next few weeks there. Time and again, she tried to convince Beyla to support her in beseeching the king, though she was always turned away.
‘Though I would very much like to put my fist up the king,’ said Beyla, ‘the time is not right. We must be cautious, Meola, and I fear you may share your late husband’s temperament.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ said Meola.
‘You are a guest in my house, but not an honoured one.’
‘Fie! I came here in search of honest folk with honest hearts, but it seems I would have better luck seeking a phallus between your thighs.’
Meola left Bealnew shortly thereafter, and the road took her northwards to Fawnavol. The earl there was a woman called Balkena, and her seat was at a town called Srander. Meola spent the winter with her, but nothing came of her stay there. She left again once the new year was underway, and amid a similar quarrel.
In the next months, Meola stayed at Eyssavek in Rogavol, then Mornawl in Syenavol, and then Syammol in Syamlavol, and she found no luck anywhere. Though none of the earls had any kind words for the king, they were not in the mood for warring when so many of them yet remembered the last time it had come to that.
Then, while she was still over at Syammol, she sat on a grassy knoll one evening to watch the sunset, just as she had before she left Klagenn.
‘O mighty sun!’ she said. ‘How is it that you let your spirit darken so each night, and yet still you find the strength to rise again each morning? I beg you, do not let your light dwindle. My spirit is dark already, and if it should further blacken tonight, I fear it may never regain its light.’
Then something strange unfolded. As Meola’s face fell weeping into her palms, she felt a hand fall softly upon her shoulder. She turned to face its bearer, and she saw at her side a boy, but not just any boy. This boy wore the face of her very own son, young Kolbeo.
‘What sort of vision are you?’ she said.
‘I am no vision,’ said Kolbeo Not. ‘I have come to guide you on behalf of my master.’
‘And who is your master?’
‘You will know her well, for her name is Meola. Now heed me! You must not let your heart’s sun set, not until you have the vengeance you seek.’
‘But all is lost, and I most of all. All I have done has all come to nothing. I have won nothing but grief and sorrow. I have watched as good folk die at my urging, too blind to have loved them while they yet lived. Fair vengeance is beyond me now. There can be only scorn for she who scorns.’
Kolbeo Not pointed to the setting sun and said, ‘When the sun sets, the day will be lost, and it will be lost for good. Yet the sun will rise again, and a new day with it. Arise, Meola! What is lost is lost for good, but it can be avenged. Arise, Meola! Arise and avenge!’
Then Meola arose and said, ‘I will! O craven sun, flee! Bring forth the night, that my heart’s sun may shine all the brighter!’ She turned to thank Kolbeo Not for his guidance, but he had vanished without a sound. She put her hand on her heart and said, ‘My son, I do this for you, for your father, and for the honour of all our kin.’
Meola set out for Bealnew once more. The journey was long, but she found her strength growing with every step. When at last she arrived, she came into the earl’s house and found Beyla chairing an assembly of the lesser magnates. Without a thought for propriety, she burst into the room, drew her beltknife, and cast it to the ground.
‘Beyla!’ she said. ‘I have come at the behest of fate itself to contest your earldom, and to claim it as my own. Will you meet me, or will you yield?’
Beyla shook her head and said, ‘I will meet you as I met your husband. It will go the same way again.’
And it did. Beyla soon summoned a full assembly at Fnoytovl, and there she and Meola spoke against one another. However, while Meola had plenty of conviction, that was about all she had. In the days since her arrival at Bealnew, she had met with only a few of the magnates, and she had been able to offer them little more than notions of justice and pride.
‘I have told you,’ Meola might have said, ‘ about the murder of my husband, who was once your earl, and that is but one hair on the wretched head of the kingship. The king lords over us from the south, thinking himself fit to govern us, and yet I daresay he has never set foot north of Fegennas.’
‘That may be so,’ a magnate might have said in reply, ‘but I have no stake in such matters either way. What difference does it make whether I pay tribute to the earl’s man or the reeve’s? I lose in either case, and I would rather know what I stand to lose with Beyla, than risk everything with you.’
Thus, when the magnates were to pick their earl, they chose Beyla.
‘This is my earldom,’ she said, ‘and so it will be until my dying day.’
Meola then wept beneath a tree as the magnates made their way back to Bealnew, and she did not go back herself until the sun had set.
* * *
While Meola was at Bealnew, so too was Bane-of-the-Tongues, watching it all unfold on Karvalo’s behalf. They sent news of Meola’s failed challenge back to Pearmol, whereupon Karvalo grew concerned.
‘If this matter goes unaddressed,’ he said, ‘it may become a problem for me, and more so than it already has been.’
‘Perhaps we should quiet her?’ said Thorreda. ‘Once and for all, as it were.’
‘That will not be sufficient. We have a better option, one which will strip this Meola woman of all her influence, and one which will likewise imperil the earldom itself.’
Then Karvalo sent his instructions back up to Bane.
* * *
After failing to claim the earldom, Meola remained at Bealnew for a little while, trying to claw back some of her esteem. While she was there, Enlovo the Reeve arrived to meet with Beyla. This was just over two years after he had been appointed to the high-reeveship, and he had spent much of that time either in the south with the king, or else hidden away at Andenn tending to personal affairs.
‘What you mean,’ said Beyla, ‘is that you have no time for your proper obligations, and yet somehow plenty for all manner of depravities and vices. But what more can be expected of the king’s lapdogs? They learnt from their master, after all.’
‘I will not tolerate such a slight,’ said Enlovo, ‘and nor will I tolerate your company a moment longer.’
Then Enlovo left, and as he went, he wrapped his hand about the hilt of a beautiful dagger on his belt, and then swung his hip towards Beyla.
Beyla only scoffed, saying, ‘He is not the sort of man his forebears were.’
Beyla’s daughter, Godleda, was also standing nearby, and she noted this exchange.
On the same day, Meola forced Enlovo to sit with her. She told him about everything that had happened following Gaylodho’s death, and she asked him if he could take the matter up with the king and have him force the Lord of Pearmol to turn over the murderer.
‘Why should I?’ said Enlovo. ‘I met the Lord of Pearmol a while ago, and he seemed chuffed indeed to have that Thennelo man at his side. I expect he would not turn him over unless he had no other option.’
‘Then give him no other option,’ said Meola. ‘If even the king cannot do that, what sort of king is he?’
‘The king can, but I would rather he did not. I am doing very well for myself at the moment, and I would like to keep it that way.’
‘Have you no shame? Is there no dignity at all within you?’
‘As the king’s foremost representative in this land, I must ward his peace. I fear you are threatening that, Meola, so we shall resolve this here and now. If you set this matter aside and go home, I will offer you compensation for the loss of your husband.’ Enlovo took from his belt that same dagger he had earlier flashed at Beyla, and he withdrew it from its sheath, glinting in the light. ‘This is Thrawre, a blade borne by many of my forebears, and which my father gifted to me upon my accession of the high-reeveship. It was with this dagger that my great-grandfather, mighty Rollayvo, slew Folgono the King, and it is worth more than any sum of silver, though I myself bear no great fondness for it. If you lay your quest aside, Meola, I will in turn gift this treasure to you.’
‘Very well,’ said Meola. ‘I will do as you ask.’
But though Meola accepted Enlovo’s gift gladly, she had no intention at all of keeping her promise. She left their meeting place with the dagger in her hand and thoughts of vengeance yet in her head, but she did not go unseen. Bane was watching.
That night, when everyone was asleep, Bane crept into Beyla’s house and stole the dagger Thrawre, believing it to be Meola’s. They went into the room where Beyla was sleeping (she slept alone), covered her face with a pillow, and cut her throat. Beyla awoke at once, sputtering into the pillow, but she died quickly and quietly. Bane cast the bloody dagger to the floor, and then escaped through the window, though they did not leave the town.
Enlovo himself discovered Beyla’s body shortly thereafter. He came into Beyla’s bedroom to rouse her from her sleep and give her a piece of his mind, but instead he found her dead in her bed, his ancestral dagger on the floor. His surprise very soon gave way to panic, and he tried to hide the dagger, but his desperate, haphazard rummaging served only to make a commotion. Those who slept closest to the bedroom overheard him, and they came to the scene to find him standing beside Beyla’s dead body, his hands bloody from holding the murder weapon.
Godleda stood among them, and she said, ‘Murderer! The king’s dog is my mother’s murderer! How do you defend yourself, Enlovo, if you dare deny this deed?’
Enlovo said he had not murdered Beyla, but had instead only discovered her body.
‘But the blood yet adorns the blade,’ said Godleda. ‘It is your blade, in your hand. I saw it on your belt just this morning as you swung it at my mother. I took that to be a threat, but I now know it was a promise of treachery to come.’
‘No!’ said Enlovo. ‘I gave this dagger to Meola. She must have done this, she who contested the earldom and lost, who we all know to be of vengeful disposition. There can be no doubt about it!’
Though Enlovo spoke with utter conviction, none would be swayed.
Godleda said, ‘You, Enlovo, are a fool, but even you are not so lacking in sense that you would part with so eminent a blade. No, your guilt is beyond doubt. You alone have been discovered here, my mother’s blood upon your skin, staining your honour. But that, it seems, is not disgraceful enough for you. Not only would you murder the earl, but you would seek to blame another. Meola and my mother were often at odds, but I know that her heart is unerring. She knows what is moral, and what is right. There is no such grief-fed frenzy that could move her to so deceitful a deed.’
Enlovo said, ‘You must believe me! I had no part in this!’
But no one believed him.
‘There can be no reconciliation here,’ said Godleda.
Then, as Beyla’s heir, she proclaimed Enlovo an outlaw and commanded those nearby to set upon him. This they did, but they did not get him. Enlovo dropped the dagger and flung himself out the window. He pushed a nearby man off his horse and rode it home to Andenn without stopping. At home, he closed the gate and bade his thanes protect him with their lives.
Godleda held the earldom on her mother’s behalf until the magnates could be assembled once more for another election. Beyla ended up being succeeded by a woman called Solvega. She was Enlovo’s sister and another ally of the king. Though none who backed her admitted it, everyone knew she had spent much of the king’s wealth buying the magnates’ support.
Solvega’s first act was to revoke Enlovo’s outlawry. Beyla’s old allies all decried this, but Solvega had enough of her own to prevent it becoming a fight. Even so, Enlovo did not want to stay in Norlonn any longer. He had his thanes escort him southwards, but he was attacked by a mob as he came out of Andenn. Though he was wounded in the arm, he survived and managed to get himself across Fegennas, whereafter he stopped over at Pearmol to rest awhile. Karvalo granted him his hospitality, and Enlovo told him everything he knew about the recent events in Eylavol.
‘What a shame,’ said Karvalo, ‘that this should all have come to pass.’
‘Everything was going so well,’ said Enlovo, ‘and now all is lost.’
‘Not all.’
No one had blamed Meola, but Karvalo deemed Enlovo’s supposed guilt to be satisfactory enough.
After a few days, Enlovo left Pearmol for Syorbak. Karvalo offered to lend him one of his ships, but Enlovo refused this.
‘Fate has had me suffer enough,’ he said. ‘I will not risk any further woe by putting out to sea.’
He set off on a horse, and he and his thanes soon came to Syorbak at last. The king offered them all his protection and a place in his hall.
* * *
Meola left Bealnew the morning after Beyla was murdered. Though she was not the murderer, and no one at Bealnew meant to accuse her of the crime, she did not want to be there if they changed their minds. She packed her things and resumed her tour of the earldoms, this time heading westwards. She had no luck with Frewdha, the Earl of Syagavol, whereafter she came to Kyalannes, the seat of the Earl of Noynavol.
The earl at that time was a tall, broad, and imposing man named Thrandeo. He was a warrior of great renown, and he had fought against the elder Arkelo when he brought his army up to Norlonn, though he was barely a man at the time. His father was called Fero, and he was beholden to Kolmodo the Earl. Thrandeo’s mother was a woman called Anthroma, who was one of Kolmodo’s chiefest attendants. Fero and Anthroma had six children together, of whom Thrandeo was the eldest. Younger than him were two brothers, called Kolvero and Sammodo, then two sisters, called Welrava and Orthroma, and then another brother, called Lossero.
Fero died fighting at Falswol, where he stood alongside his eldest sons, Thrandeo and Kolvero. Both his sons survived the battle, but while Kolvero went back to Kyalannes with the earl, Thrandeo was sent riding northwards to Syenavol in search of help.
After the battle, the king took a few days at Ewmennes to consider the way forward. The Noyns had laid waste to a large portion of his army, but they had borne many losses themselves, and their spirit was low. He decided to make the most of this situation and took his army westwards to Kyalannes, where Kolmodo was resting. Some of those within the town were able to get away before the king’s army arrived, but many left too late, and were either slain as they went, or forced to flee back behind the walls. The king had his warriors surround the town, attempting to starve his foes into surrender, though this did not come to pass.
By then, morale within Kyalannes had already fallen so low that a group of Kolmodo’s closest allies determined they would have better odds betraying him and appealing to the king’s mercy than if they sat and starved to death. Thus, they swarmed the gate in the night, threw it open, and welcomed the king. He rushed his warriors inside before the gate could be closed, and a great slaughter followed. Everyone in the town was a foe, including those who had opened the gate, and all but a very fortunate few were slain.
Anthroma was in Kolmodo’s house with all but one of her children when a gang of the king’s men burst inside. Kolvero and Sammodo picked up an axe each, but that only got them killed faster. Welrava hid herself in a storeroom, but the man who found her bashed her head with the pommel of his sword, then threw her out of the room to be set upon by his comrades. Orthroma and Lossero, the youngest pair, both clung to their mother in terror, but they were peeled away, put in bonds, and made to watch on as Anthroma was stripped and butchered on the floor. When the king’s men were done, only those who had been taken captive survived—Kolmodo and the children of the household, among whom were Orthroma and Lossero.
Only then did the king come into Kyalannes. He went up to Kolmodo’s house, and there he found the earl bound on the floor and the children held likewise around him. The king had the children lined up on their knees, and Kolmodo was knelt opposite them.
‘Children,’ said the king, ‘your master has fought against his own, and has thereby fastened his fate, and that of all his people. Know that this could have been avoided, but his pride made it certain.’
Then he bowed his head, and one by one, the children were stabbed through the back. All the while, the king gripped Kolmodo’s head, forcing him to face them.
‘Do not look away!’ he said. ‘This is your cause, your purpose, your fault.’ When the last of the children was dead, the king picked up his sword. ‘This is the cost of defiance.’
Then he chopped off Kolmodo’s head.
Thrandeo did not return to Kyalannes. While he was with Gova, the Earl of Syenavol, another survivor brought news of the massacre. He said the king had entered the town and slain everyone within. Thrandeo asked what had become of his family, but the survivor did not know.
‘No one was spared,’ he said. ‘Man and woman, young and old—all met the same fate. I do not know what became of your kinsfolk, but if they were at Kyalannes, they are dead.’
Upon hearing these words, Thrandeo fell weeping to his knees, and he vowed not to rest until the king was defeated.
However, this news was all Gova needed to make her decision. She said she would not fight the king and dismissed Thrandeo. He travelled westwards to Syamlavol, and he outlasted the fighting, but he never had the chance to bring his vengeance against the king.
Thus did Thrandeo hear Meola’s plea with eager ears.
‘I will support you,’ he said, ‘but we will not petition the king.’
‘Say more,’ said Meola.
‘I have heard that the high-reeve himself murdered your earl, and that no justice has been done. Now you tell me that much the same happened to your husband, an earl of like stature, slain by a man who is now warded by the king’s lackey? Such ills must be met with the appropriate severity. The king’s father claimed this land with bloodshed, and with bloodshed shall it be freed. With bloodshed shall your husband be avenged, my kinsfolk avenged, our people avenged. The king will die, and I will kill him!’
Then Thrandeo swept out of the room.
Meola lowered herself to her knees, stretched her hands across the floor, and said, ‘Kolbeo! My dear Kolbeo, how I thank you. You alone have given me the strength to see this through. At last, my efforts bear fruit. I hope only that the fruit is sweet.’