The Grey Robe Read online

  THE GREY ROBE

  Book 1 of the

  Sword and the Spell Trilogy

  Clare Smith

  INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

  The Grey Robe © Clare Smith Jul. 28, 2013.

  The Grey Robe is the intellectual property of the author

  and may only be reproduced, copied or transmitted, in

  part or whole, with the written permission of the author.

  All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real

  persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  Cover design by Graphicz X Designs

  http;//graphiczxdesigns.zenfolio.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHARACTERS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  CHARACTERS

  LEERSLAND.

  King Sarrat - King of Leersland

  Maladran - King Sarrat’s black magician

  King Malute - Previous king of Leersland murdered by Sarrat

  Yarrin - King Malute’s magician murdered by Maladran

  Gartnor - King Sarrat’s Guardcaptain

  High Lord Colderan - Highest ranked lord in Leersland

  Dennin - Coledran’s son

  Tarraquin - Coledran’s daughter

  Jarrul - Colderan’s huntsman and friend of Tarraquin

  Great Lord Andron - Second highest ranked lord in Leersland

  Lord Tolreth - A lord of Leersland

  Jonderill - Orphan, bound servant and magician’s apprentice.

  Tarris – Cief Stable hand

  Garrin - Maladran’s servant

  VINMORE.

  King Steppen - King of Vinmore

  Queen Althea - King Steppen’s wife

  Princess Daun - Daughter of Steppen and Althea

  Plantagenet - King Steppen’s retired magician

  Animus - King Steppen’s other retired magician

  Swordmaster Dilor - Commander of King Steppen’s guards

  Lias - Swordmaster Dilor’s nephew

  Barrin - Trainee guardsman and Jonderill’s friend

  Redruth - Trainee squire

  Tuckin - Trainee squire and friend of Redruth

  Tavlon - Minstrel

  Lowis - Royal Guard

  ESSENLAND.

  King Porteous - King of Essenland

  Prince Vorgret - King Porteous’s eldest son and heir

  Prince Pellum - King Porteous youngest son

  Duke of Tarmin - Nobleman of Essenland

  Duke of Remlon - Nobleman of Essenland

  Commander Stannis - Commander of King Porteous’s guards

  Burk - Soldier

  NORTHSHIELD.

  King Borman - King of Northshield

  Lord Rothers - King Borman’s cousin and heir

  Rastor - King Borman’s Guardcaptain

  Callabris - King Borman’s white magician

  Allowyn - Callabris’s protector

  Lord Sallins - Lord of the northern coast

  Mallingar - Captain of Borman’s mercenaries

  TARBIS.

  King Hormund - King of Tarbis murdered in a coach crash.

  Prince Newn - Heir to the throne of Tarbis

  Lord Farrion - Prince Newn’s uncle and regent of Tarbis

  SANDSTRONE.

  King Duro - King of Sandstrone murdered by his brother

  Tallison - King Duro’s brother and Rale of Sandstrone

  Coberin - King Duro’s magician murdered by Tallison

  Jonderill - Coberin’s protector. Executed

  Prince Kremin - Tallison’s eldest son

  Prince Isallin - Tallison’s youngest son

  THE DEITIES

  Federa - Goddess of magic

  Talis - God of pain and suffering

  CHAPTER ONE

  Middin

  “This ‘ere’s the one, Stablemaster. Found ‘im burrowed into the ‘ay, fast asleep like the boy ‘ad nothing to do an’ all day to do it in.” The tall boy, Tarris by name and cruel by nature, released his vice-like grip on the small boy and pushed him forward towards the Stablemaster, leaving the imprint of his fingers on the boy’s thin and grubby arm. Unlike Tarris, the Stablemaster was not a cruel man, else his equine charges wouldn’t have prospered so well under his care. He was, however, a strict disciplinarian who had no sympathy for anyone who slept whilst there was work to be done in his stables. The small boy in front of him was not one of those who had come to his attention before, although he’d seen him scuttling around the middin heap.

  He knew the boy was one of those who fed on the hound’s scraps and the horse’s windfall apples and slept in the hay along with the other vermin. Like all of those who were kingsward, orphans of the state, they eventually showed their true nature. It was his right and duty to correct those assigned to his stables so that the criminal tendencies which had condemned their fathers to death were not repeated in their get. The Stablemaster was not a cruel man but he knew his duty and did it well.

  “Were you sleepin’, Middin, when there was dirt to shifted.

  The boy didn’t look up but stared at the grey cobble stones beneath his dirty, bare feet. He’d learnt at an early age never to look at his betters with his foreigner’s pale green eyes unless he wanted to feel the crack of their hand across his cheek.

  “Yes, sir,” mumbled the boy without further explanation. He could have added that the previous day he had shovelled horse dung and straw until darkness had made it impossible for him to see where his fork struck. Then he had hidden in the hay stack too exhausted to scavenge for food and too terrified of Tarris’s threats to venture out but he knew the Stablemaster would take no excuses. He wanted the middin removed and it was the Middin’s job to do it. There could be no argument or excuses allowed, only blind obedience and soundless acquiescence.

  “’E’s a lazy little bastard, this one,” cut in Tarris knowingly. “Always loitering about when ‘e thinks no one’s watching but I’ve seen ‘im, an’ I think it’s about time ‘e learnt to bend ‘is back.”

  The Stablemaster looked at Tarris with annoyance. He knew the boy’s predilection for cruelty and would not be dictated to in his own stable yard, even by the head stable boy. The goddess knows where the boy had got his meanness from but he’d been like that from his very first day he’d come from the kingsward compound. He supposed that if you had to fight to stay alive every day of your childhood then you would turn out to be mean. Early on the Stablemaster had tried to beat it out of him but had given it up when he realised just how good Tarris was in getting those in his charge to work hard. On this occasion Tarris was probably right though, the boy would have to be dissuaded from the laziness which all who were kingsward had a tendency towards.

  “How old are you, boy?” demanded the Stablemaster. Nobody was going to accuse him of marking a child.

  “I don’t know, sir,” muttered the boy. “I
think I’ve seen seven summers but I’m not certain.”

  “Looks more like eight or nine to me, interrupted Tarris. “’E may be small but ‘e’s got an old face and ‘e’s dead crafty wiv it, knows ‘e can get away wiv owt if ‘e’s only seen seven summers and not eight.”

  The Stablemaster sighed impatiently, this whole matter was taking far too long and the middin still had to be cleared. He made his decision.

  “You come with me boy. If you are old enough to accept the hospitality of this house then you are old enough to bend your back in its service.”

  He put his large callused hand around the boy’s neck, which he could have snapped with a twist of his wrist, and guided him away from the middin heap around to the front of the long stable building. Tarris followed behind, a look of satisfaction on his face. The stable yard lay in the centre of the low, three-sided building and was an area forbidden to all but the most senior of the stablemen. It was here that High Lord Coledran came to inspect the kingdom’s finest breeding stock each day. It was also the place where his innumerable and important visitors deposited their mounts, servants, weapons and military escorts before enjoying the High Lord’s bountiful hospitality.

  Even at this early hour, with the sun barely over the horizon, the courtyard was full of activity, for if the Stablemaster was about then everyone was up and working. Magnificent stallions, the sires of the kingdom’s finest war horses, called eagerly to each other over half doors whilst outside frisky mares with long, fine legs, bred for speed and agility, were groomed until their coats shone like silk. In their empty stalls unseen hands scrubbed stone and wood to a cleanliness only equalled in the High Lord’s great house itself. It would be many hours before those who toiled would be allowed to eat what the horses and hounds had left.

  The boy had seen the courtyard once before when the kingsguard had handed him to the Stablemaster. There had been the usual order for him to care and train the boy until he had a trade to live by and could repay the kindness of the state which had raised him thus far. On his arrival the stone-cobbled courtyard and pristine white walls had seemed to be a place of hope and freedom after the dark confines of the kingsward compound but Tarris had ensured it wasn’t. It was he who had assigned the small boy to the back-breaking task of clearing the middin, offering him lighter work in return for personal favours which the terrified boy had found the courage to refuse. Since then Tarris had picked on him constantly until his life was full of fear and pain. Nothing had changed from life in the kingsward compound, only the colour of the walls.

  “You know what’s expected of you?” demanded the Stablemaster, making it sound more like a command than a question.

  Of course the boy knew. On that first day, having not eaten since the previous morning, he had mistakenly taken an apple from the feed buckets before the stallions had eaten their fill and had received a thwack around his ear from Tarris to remind him of his place. Then he had learnt the meaning of bending your back to the master’s service from the older boys who had shown him their scarred backs. It was they who had told him such stories of the Stablemaster’s method of instruction that now he could barely control the effects of his fear.

  “Bend your back, Middin,” rapped the Stablemaster.

  The boy braced his legs as the others had told him and bent from the waist down to grasp the lower bar of the hitching post in his outstretched arms. He held on firmly having been told that a tight grip would make what was to follow easier to bear. He turned his eyes downwards to fix his attention on the cobbles beneath his feet and flattened his back. In doing so he caught the gleeful glint in Tarris’s cruel eyes as he moved in front of him and pressed down hard on the boy’s hands.

  “If you’ll bend over like this for me when I ask, I’ll make sure you never have to bend your back to the master’s service again,” whispered Tarris.

  Tarris’s words held little comfort and he lowered his head whilst his legs shook despite his efforts to keep them steady. If they gave way before the designated punishment was over it would be Tarris’s job to haul him over the hitching post for the Stablemaster’s lesson to continue.

  “This is goin’ to hurt you more than I would,” hissed the elder boy gleefully.

  When the Stablemaster’s rough hand touched the boy’s back he flinched and gave an involuntary shudder which brought a harsh cackle of laughter from Tarris. The Stablemaster gave Tarris a cold stare but continued to pull the grain sack, which acted as the boy’s tunic, high over his shoulders and passed his head. Instantly he was plunged into a darkness filled with the smell of his own sweat and fear and ingrained dirt. This was the worst part he had been told, not knowing when the lesson would begin in earnest. Already his back ached from the strained position and the need to relieve himself was urgent. He knew he would anyway, that humiliation was part of the lesson but he was determined to hold on as long as he could, however foolish his pride might be.

  The Stablemaster ran his hand over the boy’s sweating back, even now not sure how old the boy could be. The knobs on his spine pressed against tight flesh and each rib stood out in stark relief. In truth he had seen more flesh on a half starved hound than on this boy. He began to regret his decision to teach the boy his first lesson but Tarris stood watching with a sneer on his face. He knew that any sign of forbearance now would be ridiculed by the stable hands before the day was another candle length older. Reluctantly he raised his dog whip and began the usual litany he used on such occasions.

  Beneath the sacking tunic the boy could only hear the mumble of words spoken by his master and was unprepared for the moment the whip cut across his shoulders. Despite his resolve to be strong he cried out in shock and pain and felt wetness run down his cheeks and the inside of his leg. He had been beaten before in the kingsward compound but nothing like this. If only he could hear what the Stablemaster said he might learn to be better but all he could hear was the muffled recital and the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. The cane cut again and a new kind of wetness ran down the side of his body.

  The Stablemaster cut down with his dog whip for a third time and winced at the boy’s cry of pain. After the first stroke he had been holding back but there was no flesh on the boy to prevent his cane slicing to the bone and drawing blood. He wished he had never started this but Tarris’s sadistic eyes left him with no option but to continue although he knew the boy would collapse long before the eighth blow could fall. The Stablemaster raised his arm again whilst the small body shook beneath the suffocating sacking and the boy sobbed openly, knowing the next blow would have him on his knees with all control gone.

  “That must be a truly savage creature to take two of you to give it a thrashing.” The voice which interrupted the Stablemaster’s stroke was soft and velvety with the slightest hint of irony. “Now what sort of demon have you captured there? It must be a greshling or a trolsterk at least.”

  The Stablemaster lowered his arm, his feelings torn between gratitude at being prevented from delivering the next blow and annoyance that his word of law should be questioned within his own domain. He turned to the man to see who dared question his authority but the early morning sun had risen behind the man obscuring the caped and hooded figure and turning it into a dark silhouette.

  “It’s no demon, sir, but a boy who has shown his lazy nature and must learn the lesson of how to bend his back to his master’s service.”

  Inside the sacking tunic the boy shook with fear whilst Tarris looked petulantly at the intruder and pressed the boy’s hands harder into the wooden hitching rail.

  A boy! Ah yes, I should have recognised the savageness of the creature despite his diminutive size and obvious thinness.” The voice had now become coldly cynical with more than a hint of malice. The Stablemaster squinted against the glare of the low sun but the tall man’s features still remained hidden within his deep hood. “Tell me, Stablemaster, is it your usual custom to teach a child his manners when he can neither see nor hear the lesson you deli
ver.

  The Stablemaster felt foolish and guilty at the same time and now a small group of stablemen had gathered on the far side of the yard to enjoy the rare occasion of their master’s discomfort. “The boy is kingsward whose father was quartered and it is my duty to make sure the boy doesn’t go the same way. If it takes a lesson or two to make him learn to bend his back to his master’s service then that’s what I must do. I would rather him learn the feel of the dog whip on his back now than to sell his soul to hellden’s master and die at the cross pikes like his father did.

  “Perhaps the boy would learn quicker if he could see the goodness of the man who delivered that lesson,” suggested the man with mocking severity. “I suggest you release him from his darkness.”

  The Stablemaster felt the heat of anger and indignation rise within him and stepped forward a pace to defend his questioned authority. “My master is the High Lord Coledran and he has commanded me to turn these worthless kingsward into good freemen with an honourable trade and he gives me an open hand to do as I see fit. This boy is lazy and must learn his lessons the same as others have done before him.”

  “Release the child now,” commanded the hooded man in a sibilant hiss.

  Taken aback by the man’s vehemence the Stablemaster went to protest further and for the first time caught sight of the black eyes and the sharply drawn features which were no longer hidden in shadow. He stepped back in haste, dropped the dog whip and snatched the boy’s hands back from within Tarris’s grasp. The sudden movement and change of events confused the boy and he cringed from the Stablemaster’s grip as the coarse sacking was roughly pulled down over his tender back. Terrified of what new punishment might be forthcoming he kept his eyes steadfastly on the raised cobble between his feet. The cloaked man studied him with waning interest, he was, after all, just another small, fatherless boy.