A Greedy Refusal

An hour passed with Rachel waiting there in her tower, watching and listening for the men who had come with threats for Cador. She thought she recognized Sir Odo's voice in the arguments. The men of their number might rally around Sir John Osteler, a man of royal blood and martial glory, it was Odo who her father would have trusted most with this duty. Then she saw Cador lift his hand high in the air, and saw stormclouds form above him. She heard the men outside Ughelor taking notice. The common soldiers behind the leaders of the campaign moved erratically, like grass in the wind, unsure of whether to heed orders and stay or to look out for their own lives.

The Red Prince threw down his hand. A finger of fire shot down from the clouds and struck a tree not far from the encampment: a warning. The soldiers ran to quench the growing blaze as Cador laughed. Even from Mollethin Spire, Rachel could hear the knights cursing him and swearing to see him dead. A smile crept up from the corner of her mouth. They wouldn't see it. She was a small flash of black and royal red against the tower's gray stone.

Cador left the walls before they could rally their archers. He gathered together with his own soldiers down below, led by his squire Art. The nineteen year old boy laughed uproariously, having sensed the turn in the castle's strength though he hadn't seen it. Cador shared a few words with his followers, mostly peasant archers from the villages surrounding Ughelor, and then marched past them to the tower at the eastern wall. //He wants to take his pleasure from his prize,// Rachel thought. A natural impulse after having defended it.

She stepped back into her bedroom and flicked her hand, summoning the red-tinged Pearl of Gabras into it. It had been her own prize, awarded after mastering the wretches of Gabras Marsh who had initiated her in the ways of the deep. Now it served as a focus for her witchcraft. She reached inside the little ball and drew forth a robe of purest white, sheer to display herself for him. Her dress replaced it in the pearl's confines. Cador enjoyed the appearance of innocence, if not the practice of it.

Her door burst open. There he stood in his armor and Goscled in his hand. He had a wolf's smile. "You know them better than me," he said. "How long will they last?"

She laughed. "In his younger years Odo might've given you a fight," she said. "But he's tired now. He must be fifty. And when John Osteler realizes there's no glory to be won, his passion for battle will fade."

"Two months," Cador suggested.

"At most," she agreed.