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

assembled these past twenty years.
    Baron Karpis rose to his feet, though. Whatever else might be said of him, his devotion and fidelity to his noble lady was beyond reproach.
    ‘Whatever a wife might expect in the bedroom,’ he said with some distaste, ‘a more pressing question in the current season is what she might expect by way of protection. The Halferan barony has been ravaged by corsairs yet again and the demesne guard is reduced to greybeards and unshaven boys. Granted, these black-hearted raiders have retreated for the present, but there’s no knowing when they might return.
    ‘Karpis is the largest barony to border Halferan lands.’ The plump lord took a step forward and turned to address the whole gathering. ‘I have a fighting force of proven worth sworn to my service. We yield to no one in our resolve to defend Halferan’s worthy tenants as well as the widowed Lady Zurenne, and her two young daughters. Thus I propose myself as their most suitable guardian. This so-called marriage is an irrelevance.’
    Wheeling around, he looked Corrain up and down with open contempt. ‘When you and I last met, you were weeping like a dairymaid who had dropped her cream dish. I would be failing in my own duty if I were to leave defenceless women in the care of such a vagabond so clearly seen to be unmanned.’
    He made a point of staring at Corrain’s unwarrior-like plait of hair.
    Corrain took care not to clench his fists. It wouldn’t do to punch the baron’s face so hard that the fat bastard spat out a mouthful of teeth.
    Besides, there was no denying his collapse after he had been hurled back to Caladhria by that villainous mage Anskal. Halferan men and troopers from Karpis and Licanin had all been witness to it. Now Corrain saw that those few barons unaware of his humiliation were being quickly informed by avidly whispering neighbours.
    ‘I was exhausted, my lord Karpis, when you and I last met,’ Corrain said with hard-won composure. ‘I had been searching the coastal marshes for days, for any sign of those fleeing the destruction of Halferan Manor. In hopes of rescuing any who had been enslaved by the corsair raiders.’
    Until he had finally returned, walking league upon endless league, as drawn by unthinking instinct as any courier dove to its nest. Where else could he go but back to Halferan?
    Where Baron Karpis and his household guard along with Lord Licanin and his own troopers had escorted Lady Zurenne and her daughters back to survey the ruination of their home.
    They had all seen Corrain reduced to helpless tears as he saw so many of those he’d thought dead had somehow been saved. Even if they didn’t know the full burden of the guilt that had driven him to his knees.
    Corrain’s only consolation was he remembered so little of that dreadful day himself. With the seemingly endless anguish shredding his wits, his recollections were like glimpses through a distant window as shutters opened and closed.
    Halferan Manor’s roofless buildings, half-consumed by fire. Lady Zurenne, so gaunt and pale yet stiff with resolve to protect her daughter’s inheritance. Lady Ilysh, looking so excruciatingly like her dead father whom Corrain had so grievously failed to protect.
    ‘You were talking of defending Halferan, Lord Karpis.’ Corrain fixed the baron with a penetrating stare. ‘Yet the manor and its village lie in ruins, along with countless hamlets and farms between the demesne and the sea. You singularly failed to prevent that destruction.’
    Baron Karpis spread lavishly beringed hands. ‘I had no authority to stand between Halferan and the raiders. I had sought it, last Aft-Spring, after I had learned that Master Minelas had abandoned his responsibilities, and then again at this summer’s parliament, only to be denied in favour of Lord Licanin. Alas, entrusting Halferan to the care of a barony so far away proved a sad mistake.’
    Lord Licanin sprang to his feet. ‘You were happy to entrust