The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

  “It’s true. Sindan died instead.”

  Hadand recoiled, shock and sorrow widening her eyes. “I thought . . . I thought he was . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Left in charge of Ala Larkadhe? I don’t think I could have prevented him from coming home, had he known about—” Evred waved a hand toward the bloodstained rugs, then rubbed his forehead. Kill the king. Anger burned into fury behind his ribs, but he had to get control. Think, not feel. He’d seen the evidence of letting emotions control actions. Seen it and lived it in his own mistakes. “You’re certain Hawkeye knew nothing?”

  “As certain as I can be. He refused at least twice, in front of witnesses, to obey his father’s will. Surely Cama told you that?”

  “Yes. But I wanted to hear it from you.” Evred opened his hand, then turned slowly, looking from object to object in the room. She watched him covertly.

  He was so tall, his austere profile so like his father’s, and yet so unlike. His dark red hair waved up into its clasp and hung down to the small of his back, his hands were the long, fine hands of his family, roughened by daily drill. He was her own dear Evred in his academy gray, yet he wasn’t; there were faint lines around his eyes from his long rides in the northern summer sun, from whatever tensions he’d endured during that time. Though only twenty he was a man grown, and despite the ravaged chamber, despite her awareness of the many waiting outside to demand the new king’s attention, her heart fluttered in her ribs like a caged swift. She fought the urge to step closer to him, to hear his breathing, to smell his scent, to look up into his eyes. To touch him.

  But he didn’t want her. He would never want her.

  She forced her mind away from awareness of him, disgusted with herself. Here he stands, not a handbreadth from where his father bled out his life, and all I can think of is . . . She shied away from even that much acknowledgment of her emotions. “Maybe if people weren’t already tired of the demands of war there might have been more trouble,” she said, because this was what mattered to him most, and he would need her help. “Under all the talk of loyalty and oaths I hear a fear of chaos. People want you to fix what’s wrong. And there’s a lot wrong.”

  She paused, and he gestured agreement. She resumed, her even tone and the flow of words now sounding rehearsed to him, who was sensitive to every subtlety in her voice.

  “After that first week we had ridings appear from Ola-Vayir, from Stalgrid Tya-Vayir—the one you call Horsebutt—from friends and foes of your uncle, some demanding fulfillment of secret promises your uncle Anderle had made, others demanding justice in the form of more lands and grants. But my father’s warriors and Cama and the Marlo-Vayirs forced them all to sheer off. Cama stood at my shoulder looking tough, and he had the Guard drilling in the open, armed, at all times.” She smiled briefly. “Cama was my Shield Arm. Joret arrived,” she added after a pause. “Your brother’d sent men to Darchelde to fetch her—doesn’t matter why—”

  “We know why. Was there trouble with Darchelde?”

  “Not a bit. Joret said she had promised the Sierlaef she would come, in order to prevent bloodshed.”

  Evred knew Hadand too well to think that the mention of Cama and then Joret were unrelated. “What happened with Joret?” he asked quickly. “No trouble with Cama, surely?”

  Hadand sighed. “I had some fears for a time that she would follow poor Kialen, for she felt that she had chosen dishonor rather than risk causing civil war. Your brother wanted to marry her, you see, which made her sense of dishonor more unbearable—the fact that in marrying him she would turf me out as queen.”

  Evred made a warding gesture. “Why didn’t she just take a knife to him?”

  “Because she knew that, by his own strange reasoning, he was doing the right thing, the ‘honorable’ thing, by offering to make her a queen. So she was grieved and confused and ashamed. But then she met Cama.” Another little smile. “The only bearable thing in a terrible month. When they’re together the heat could banish winter.”

  Evred pinched his thumb and forefinger to his nose. “No. Not Cama and Joret.” He dropped his hand, smiling wearily. “I should say, under ordinary circumstances, what you call heat couldn’t happen to two finer people. But his family—her family—”

  “Exactly,” she said, looking grim. “If Horsebutt found out, he’d try to force Starand out and gain alliance with Choraed Elgaer by insisting on a marriage. And Starand, of course, would go home to Ola-Vayir, wailing and insisting she’d been dishonored—she would love nothing better than a clan war in her name. She would in fact do anything for that much attention. So Cama and Joret had just a few days together, and when my father went home, she went with him, and Cama stayed by my side.”

  He sighed. “Honor again. What a cost.”

  Hadand’s smile faded. “Honor indeed. I just hope they don’t pay the price the rest of their lives.”

  Evred shook his head, then moved to the next painful item on his list. “What about Kialen? Where is she? You said ‘follow’.”

  “Dead. But not by violence. We found her lying on her bed. Tesar insisted she smelled distilled white kinthus in the room, and there was an empty crystal vial on the night-stand next to the unlit candle. Though I don’t know how she could have gotten it, as Tesar acted as Runner for her, too. She couldn’t bear to take a stranger as Runner. Anyway I’d told her to hide. I had to get to the queen. My first duty was to guard the queen,” she added, her voice going high.

  “I know. You could not be everywhere at once. Poor Kialen! I don’t think she spoke a single word to me in the year before I was sent north. Yet I tried to be as gentle with her as I could.”

  “Oh, Evred, I tried so hard to make her happy, but she got stranger and stranger, like she half lived in a world we didn’t see.” Hadand’s voice trembled. She made a fierce effort and stilled it. She looked up, blinked, then turned to the fire. “Aunt Ndara confessed to me not long ago that the Cassad family had decided she was going the way of a mysterious Cassadas great-grandmother seldom mentioned, who saw and even spoke with ghosts. I did my very best to try to keep her with us, but when she wasn’t in her own dreamworld she was always afraid. I should have kept her by me at the end, but I didn’t know if they’d come after the queen, and I did not know what she would do.” Her face was averted.

  Evred moved to where he could see her. He could feel the effort she made to marshal her emotions.

  “At least Barend is recovering,” she said, glancing his way and attempting a smile.

  “Barend! Vedrid told me he had returned, but subsequent events so overtook me I completely forgot. And the others never mentioned him.”

  She said reasonably, “Well, your academy friends don’t know him, do they? He showed up the day after, when everything was upside down. He was more dead than alive.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “From the beginning? He was taken by pirates. He was with Inda when they found out about your uncle’s betrayal of the Algara-Vayirs. Barend can tell you all that. Your brother apparently sicced Nallan onto him, along with two others.”

  “To murder him, I take it?”

  “Yes. But the Sierlaef made a mistake, it seems, in sending only Nallan and two of his own spy hirelings against someone who has been fighting against pirates for ages.”

  “Nallan,” Evred repeated with distaste. “As well he’s dead. I would hate to sit in judgment over him—to labor to be fair when I have always despised him.”

  Hadand said, “Well, Barend killed all three of them. But in his hurry to get here he traded his steady old mare that Tdor and Whipstick had wisely given him, tried galloping over ice, and he and the mare fell. Barend’s leg was shattered, arm broken. The horse did much better, merely bruised knees. Somehow he managed to get home. Poor Barend,” she added. “He wanted so badly to ride for the north to rejoin Inda at some harbor. The stairs defeated him—he tried to leave, and we found him in a faint outside the stable. The only other good thing I can
claim to my credit is my thinking of Aunt Ndara’s Runner Ranet to nurse him. She returned a couple of days after the deaths, and when she discovered what had happened—she had not been here to defend Aunt Ndara—I was afraid she would take her own life as a kind of expiation, even though she probably could not have saved her. Even though she was sent on some mission by Ndara herself.”

  Evred gave a faint grimace. “But they have been like sisters since Ranet was assigned to be her Runner when they were small.”

  “Yes, and Barend loved Ranet like an aunt. So I assigned her to nurse him. We were already desperately overreached anyway. And she has recovered enough to find purpose in life, I think. But Barend, well, he could use some cheering.”

  “Yes,” Evred promised, his heartbeat quickening. Barend was alive. Here. And he had been with Inda.

  Hadand brushed shaky fingers over her brow, pressing as if to hold in a headache, but then her hand dropped. “At least dear Aunt Ndara had the joy of knowing Barend was alive, even though she never did get to see him.”

  “Good.”

  “Let me show you the king’s rooms, which are untouched. I left your father’s and uncle’s papers for you. Evred, Iasca Leror is in trouble. Mage spells weakening, no mages from the Adranis, tax money flowing north or to the coast and leaving things undone here. It’s not going to be easy to hold the kingdom, especially if we face more war. You know that the pirates were defeated, but the Venn sailed away. They were apparently not in the battle, just the pirates. The Venn are untouched. Surely they plan something else.”

  “Yes, but that can wait. We’ve enough to consider here. One more task before we face the others.”

  She fell silent and Evred walked with her to the royal chambers. There she waited in the doorway while he wandered about, avoiding all the bloodstains on the floor, where the king’s own Runners had died defending an empty room as the king had been in his son’s chambers. He examined little things: a hairbrush laid aside, a robe tossed over the back of a chair for later. His father’s house slippers by his bed. Everything in readiness for another day, one that would never come.

  Finally they walked into the king’s bedroom, where a magic fire burned quietly in the grate, untended for a month. The room was warm, unlike all the others, plain, the few furnishings old and well-kept. There Evred turned to face Hadand, and pulled from his pocket the silken square. She remained silent as he unwrapped it. “Sindan wouldn’t die until he gave me this.”

  She drew in a slow, audible breath. “So you know, then.” “Know what?”

  He watched her color change.

  “About the magic lockets.”

  “No. Tell me,” he added, thinking, Yet another secret.

  She searched his eyes, which had gone remote, and sensed the change in his mood. “I did not know that the king and Captain Sindan had a pair,” she said. “The only pair I knew about was that belonging to Aunt Ndara and Ranet. It was Aunt Ndara’s secret,” Hadand added, emphasizing the words. “I was sworn never to tell anyone. The lockets transfer messages. Your mother brought them as gifts for her and your uncle when she first came to this kingdom as a bride—she did not know our marriage customs. Your uncle, of course, despised the idea of ‘lovers’ lockets.’ But I found this on your father and set it aside for you. Somehow he got a pair as well.” She crossed to a carved cedar-wood casket on the mantel. “It holds the twin to Sindan’s locket.”

  Evred made no move toward the casket. “Do you know how they work?”

  “I know how Ndara’s works. They are probably the same.”

  He joined her at the fireplace, where he laid Sindan’s locket in the cedar-scented wooden box with its mate.

  Hadand said, “Any other questions?”

  Evred led the way out. “My mother?”

  “She has not stirred from her rooms. She would like to see you,” she added, following him back into the study. “And she wants to be reassured she can go home.”

  “Home,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I will see her after we are done here.”

  Evred walked into her field of vision; she turned away, busying her hands with piles of papers that lay on the king’s desk, senseless stacking and patting. He was in arm’s reach, but he couldn’t see her face, only the top of her head, the neat part in her brown hair. She was quite short; not so long ago she had been the taller, the wiser, the stronger. She still was wise. And her strength was the kind he needed most.

  “Hadand,” he said.

  She glanced up, those eyes so very like Inda’s. The resemblance jolted him, and for a moment he lost his own trail of thought. He forced the memory away and saw Hadand’s distant, sad gaze go to the window so that her profile was outlined against the bright golden sunrays slanting in.

  “Hadand, why won’t you face me? Is there something that I’ve done?” He added, “That I should’ve done, and have not?”

  She shook her head, then turned away.

  “Hadand, please look at me,” Evred said. “You have held the kingdom for me. Not so easy a task.”

  She did not deny it. Neither did she look at him.

  “Hadand, I thought about this matter during the long ride south. It might not be what either of us expected, or even what you would want, but will you marry me? If you like I shall enumerate all the reasons. But I really believe it is the best thing for the kingdom. It’s your skill, your mind, your wisdom that Iasca Leror needs. That I need.”

  She had turned her back. At first he thought she was angry, but he saw the shaking of her shoulders, and he stopped, bewildered.

  But then she stood up straight, her shoulders squared. “Excuse me.” Her voice was firm, if a little rough. “Just— being in these rooms. Of course I will. I do agree, it is the right thing for the kingdom.” Her voice was too brisk, too unnatural.

  “It is the only thing I am sure about.” He held out his hands. “We’ve known one another all our lives,” he said, hands turning outward in a gesture of distress. “You know I would never interfere with you in personal matters. All I ask for myself is truth between us. And when the right time comes, an heir we will train so there never again is a problem like the one we face here.”

  “Yes,” she said, and swiped her wrist across her eyes as she turned around. “Yes. And so shall it be.”

  “We will marry Midsummer’s Day, at the coronation, for you will be Gunvaer to a Harvaldar, since it’s clear that despite any wishes of mine the war is not ending.”

  She said, “I fear you are right.”

  “I want to know the state of things well before then. When they all come to make their oaths, they will be demanding this and that of the Sierlaef’s awkward young brother who knows nothing of kingship, and I don’t want to give more than I get.” He looked wry. “First I must deal with the Yvana-Vayirs, though I hope if I stall long enough the old man will die. Maybe I should offer him a knife.”

  “Do,” she said, her brown eyes serious. “I wish I had not stayed my hand. It would have been be so much better. But he was an old man, a Marlovan, and my instinct was to wound, not to kill. Then I couldn’t reach down and finish him off when he was on his knees before me, his weapon fallen. Not in front of the eyes of his son.”

  He agreed, relieved to see the tension fade from her forehead, from her small, expressive hands.

  “All right. Then let us order the royal bonfire. And I’ve got my own promises to keep. Then we’ll take a look at the trade papers while we await the last reports from the coast . . .”

  And as the days turned into weeks, and he never again saw that strange torment in her expression, he grew easier in mind, deciding it had been her grief over the many deaths.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  THEY lived in their childhood rooms while the royal suites were refurbished, the papers from the king’s study having been moved to the old schoolroom. One by one the expected formal rituals were performed, all of them painful for different reasons.

  The first was the funeral bo
nfire for a war king and his Harskialdna and son, carried out—as Evred’s coronation would be—at midnight, the throne room lit with torches. They did nothing to warm the high-vaulted stone chamber, men’s voices rising and falling in the ancient Hymn to the Fallen, the voices of the women in the gallery echoing in an eerie descant. Evred did not sing; his throat was too tight. All he could think was, My father. My father is dead.

  Evred’s mother stood behind him, and she too was silent; at the end, she pressed his hand, her fingers trembling.

  Wisthia and the others left, but Evred and Hadand walked together over to the barracks, where Runners from all across the kingdom had gathered. Once again Evred endured the heart-wrenching chant so movingly whispered, sung in wavering tones with abrupt silences and bowed heads, in memorial to Jened Sindan, Captain of the King’s Runners, who had died as he had lived, defending the king and his family.

  Evred could not sing at all, his throat was still too tight; the sting in his eyes intensified, and when he heard Hadand’s muffled sob on the women’s side, his tears began to flow.

  He was still standing there, eyes closed, when the Runners all withdrew. Only Hadand remained.

  When at last he drew a long, audible breath, she said, “Do you want to be alone?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  They did not speak as they walked upstairs to their childhood rooms.

  The next day he had to deal with his father’s personal possessions, and once again Hadand was at his side. It did not take long. The king, austere his entire life, had not owned much. His aesthetic pleasures had been bound up in the archives, and in ancestral furnishings and banners that would remain untouched.

  His clothes, and the even more modest belongings of Captain Sindan, Evred and Hadand packed with their own hands. That night they and Barend held their own private bonfire; none of them wanted to pack away their personal belongings to some attic, as most families did, or to have them reused. Evred said he wanted to burn them all cleanly, and no one disagreed.