Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) by Juliet E. McKenna

among themselves. He dared not look as the first few hands were raised. He didn’t want anyone to look into his eyes and see how wholly unworthy he was to take his dead lord’s place.
    He had failed his liege lord utterly. His desperate efforts to make some recompense had come at the cost of further failure. He had abandoned that fool boy Hosh, even though he was one of Halferan’s own, all for the sake of escaping from the corsair slavers. Even though he knew full well the lad could never survive a slave’s brutal life without Corrain to defend him.
    It was almost enough to make him wish that he still believed in the gods, even at the cost of answering to Saedrin for all his sins. Then Corrain could have hoped that the wretched lad was already safely reborn in the Otherworld with all his injuries healed, every hurt that Corrain had failed to save him from soothed.
    But there were no gods and Corrain had failed Hosh. As badly as he’d failed Kusint, after all that the Forest-born lad had done. Helping him to escape the corsairs; Corrain couldn’t swim much less sail a boat. Telling him of Solura’s mages who owed nothing to Hadrumal. Taking him north in search of just such a mage. Then Corrain had repaid him by allying with the Mandarkin, no matter what Kusint had told him of that wicked race’s villainy. No wonder Kusint had abandoned him in disgust.
    The bright colours of the distant window blurred.
    ‘Very well,’ Baron Ferl said in measured tones. ‘We have our answer, my lords.’
    Corrain blinked hastily and looked to see what that might be. He felt abruptly weak with relief as he saw more than half the assembly’s hands were raised, though some of the lords were already heading for the door.
    ‘Good.’ A nameless, exasperated noble said to his companion. ‘Let’s hope we can get on the road before the fifth chime of noon.’
    Corrain didn’t care who had only voted in his favour in order to go home. He pushed his way through the shifting throng. He had to sit down.
    Lord Licanin caught his elbow and pulled him roughly to one side.
    ‘Have you bedded Ilysh?’ he hissed in an undertone. ‘I won’t betray her shame but I have a right to know! I know your reputation.’
    Corrain should have expected that. After he had joined the guardsmen’s barracks, he had rarely bothered to hide his dalliances with tavern girls and village maids. Why should he? They were willing and old Fitrel had shown him the uses of alum and beeswax so none ever arrived at the manor’s gatehouse with a swelling belly.
    He had grown a little more discreet in later years but only because his tastes inclined towards married women. Not discreet enough, when it had come to Starrid’s wife. Corrain had grown too used to cuckolded husbands too busy with their own pleasures to notice a straying wife or to play the hypocrite if they did.
    Halferan’s former steward had rolled the third side of that rune. He had beaten his hapless wife black and blue. There was no hiding that scandal so Corrain had lost his captaincy to ride as a common trooper. Of course Lord Licanin would have heard of that through his man Rauffe’s letters to his former home.
    So the grey-haired lord wasn’t about to stand idly by and allow Corrain to abuse a defenceless girl. Not when he had already failed Lady Ilysh once.
    All the same, Corrain owed Lord Licanin some measure of honour for the Licanin blood shed in Halferan’s defence. The truth was fit repayment.
    ‘No, I have not touched her, nor will I,’ he said low-voiced, ‘until and unless she is of an age and of a mind to make that choice for herself, and I don’t see that ever happening. Saedrin’s stones, my lord, I’m old enough to be her father.
    ‘Besides,’ he added frankly, ‘even if Lady Ilysh were ever willing Lady Zurenne would cut off my manhood before I laid a finger on her daughter. I’ve sworn to dissolve the marriage whenever Ilysh asks it and she will go virgin to a worthy