The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

  And does that not sum up the irony of my life, Hadand thought, her emotions swooping like summer starlings: her own Evred, nearly as handsome as Cama and the only love of her life since childhood, framed by his friends who were trying politely to veil their lusty appreciation for Joret’s beauty. But in Evred’s face there was only tranquil courtesy.

  She shut her eyes.

  Fareas, watching her daughter with the hunger of a mother long separated from her child’s life, saw with dismay a closed countenance where once there had been transparent openness.

  As if she felt her mother’s stare, Hadand opened her eyes. She saw Fareas’ loving face—older, thinner, her unhidden worry—and they flung their arms around one another.

  From over her shoulder she caught Evred’s gaze. He flicked his eyes in the direction of Branid, his brows faintly raised in question. Hadand made the briefest grimace, and responsibility transferred from one to the other in that instant, comprehended by both.

  “Come, Branid-Dal. Join us in a glass of wine while you wait for the Runners to get dry clothes laid out,” Evred said, knowing who he was although they had never met. Hadand had brought home bitter stories about Branid after her Name Day visits ever since she was small.

  No sign of that now as he smiled, opening his hand toward his friends, then led the way back inside.

  Branid strutted after them, glancing backward to see who was aware of his being thus singled out by the future king. Finding he was not the center of attention, he started in with loud commentary in a mixture of flattery and bragging that would very soon wear on them all.

  Hadand led her mother and Joret up to the queen’s chamber.

  Queen Wisthia awaited the women in her empty parlor with exquisite silks covering the walls, now showing faded spots. The furniture that had stood there for decades was now on a wagon train plodding eastward. As soon as this last interview was done, the waiting servants would strip the walls, too, and begin shifting the new queen’s furnishings in, so Hadand would begin her first night as queen in the queen’s rooms.

  Wisthia surveyed her rain-drenched guests. Joret smiled back, her color heightened. Fareas was thin, aging, care-worn, her brown gaze the direct and assessing expression that had become so familiar in Hadand.

  “Thank you for bringing Joret,” Wisthia said, taking Fareas’ hands briefly.

  Fareas looked at the queen’s eyes, saw a curious sadness, the intensity of need, and sensed there was some extra meaning intended. It would take time before she comprehended that Wisthia, having accepted her own failure as a mother, harbored hope that Evred might find a mother in the woman who had birthed Hadand and Inda.

  Hadand escorted Fareas-Iofre and Joret to the guest chambers to change to dry clothes, then returned to her rooms for her splendid overdress of scarlet and gold. Montrei-Vayir colors—the kingdom’s colors. From now on, she belonged to others. That meant the needs of the kingdom must come before her own.

  During the great dinner in the vast hall across from the throne room, Wisthia presided one last time, Hadand at her right hand, Fareas at her left, Evred at the far end. Down either side sat all the Jarls and Jarlans, save those who were prevented by trouble in the north or old age from the long ride. Everyone seemed determined to promote an atmosphere of good will, perhaps mindful of the violence of winter; at either end Evred and Hadand observed who was speaking to whom.

  Midnight.

  Torches burned along every wall.

  Beyond the castle the plains, contours faintly reflecting back the golden glow, were empty. No enemy lurked within a month’s ride, but the vigilant sentries gripped weapons as the rumble of drums thumped in the summer air all around them.

  Then, as the castle bell tolled midnight, the clangor was drowned in showers of shimmering brass glissades as trumpet after trumpet echoed from every tower in the city, playing the thrilling triple-chord fanfare of “The King’s Charge.”

  Within the throne room the heat was exponentially more intense. All eyes turned to the massive double doors, hearts beating fast as the fanfare’s echoes died away. The drums high on the balcony above, six to a side, shifted to the galloping beat of “King’s Triumph,” first one side and then the other. In through the doors strode Evred Montrei-Vayir, horsetail swinging, light glinting richly off the long crimson-and-gold battle tunic of his ancestors, chain mail jingling, the ring of his boot heels slow and sustained, exactly on the beat. Four, five, six steps he took, and then without warning the great two-sided war drums—as tall as the pairs of strong young men playing them—thundered a counterpoint, and those closest saw Evred flush at the accolade.

  As he walked the length of the long throne room, past all the gathered leaders, more drums joined from those hidden above, riding by riding, nine by nine, until there were eighty-one drums pounding the beat back and forth until the rolling rumble pulsed in blood and bone. Step, step, straight to the dais where Hadand waited, a sword in each hand, four armed men standing in a diamond shape behind her.

  She raised the swords, points toward the sky.

  A shout went up from all around: “Hadand-Gunvaer! Hadand-Gunvaer Deheldegarthe!”

  She flushed then paled, for she too was given an unexpected accolade.

  Evred smiled in pride and triumph; she was not just hailed as Gunvaer, war queen, but as Deheldegarthe, the protector of the kingdom.

  Tears stung her eyes, but she braced herself, lifted her chin, then tossed both swords high into the air.

  Wisthia closed her eyes.

  Fareas watched those slowly turning blades, every nerve in her body singing.

  Tesar held her breath, remembering the cuts Hadand had gotten the first two or three days she practiced the Sword Throw without gloves.

  Down they came, spinning slowly. Hadand’s hands reached up—and she caught them by the crossguards, whirled them expertly down to her sides, arms clamping the flat blades against her waist, the hilts offered to her mate, her war king.

  Another shout reverberated off the stones.

  In peacetime she would have handed him the swords, and he would have held them point down as he listened to the Jarls, but a war king was expected to make war: his coronation must follow in the manner of long tradition.

  He slammed the swords together over his head.

  Clash-innng!

  A blue spark arced away. Hadand stepped aside as Evred whirled around, striking at the man behind him. The Jarl of Ola-Vayir was still strong enough to meet that powerful swing. He whipped up his sword in an overhead block. Crash! Exactly on the beat two sparks glinted, and the Jarl stepped away and lowered his blade.

  Evred whirled and swung. Clang! rang the blade of the Jarl of Jaya-Vayir from the south, for the third time striking a spark, and old men as well as young nodded and smiled.

  Then he whirled and Hasta Marlo-Vayir, determined to hold up the reputation of the west, met Evred’s blade with such an enthusiastic strike the sparks shot upward, causing a cry of delight from the watching Jarls as, last, Evred stepped directly before the throne where his Shield Arm stood—his cousin Barend—and again a spark twinkled as Barend forced his healing arm up to meet that blow with his sword. But meet it he did.

  And then the double blades crashed to the ground, one lying north-south, one east-west. Hands high, Evred began the war dance. The intricate steps spun him in and out of the squares, steel winking and glittering in the reflected torchlight.

  On the second round the other four joined, throwing their blades down—north-south, east-west—at either side of the square made by the new king, and all five of them whirled and stepped in perfect time with the drums, the older men’s horsetails and long coat skirts swinging as briskly as the young men’s, for they, too, had practiced for months.

  They stopped on the very same beat as the drums, the silence so sudden the echoes rang up the ancient stone.

  Then a great shout reverberated, so loud and solid a body of sound that the watchers’ skulls buzzed.

&nb
sp; For that moment they were one kingdom, united into one heart, one will. But fast as the echoes died individual minds returned from the sound-sustained center-point to their accustomed boundaries. Heat—thirst—hunger— tiredness—how long until I can get free of this crowd—oh, yes, the Jarls have to come forward—where’s my place—

  They shuffled forward in strict order of precedence, oldest titles in front—except for the Montredavan-Ans, exiled onto their own land.

  But the first vows belonged to Hadand and Evred, he as guardian of the land and she as guardian of everything within the walls of the royal city and overseer of the women who guarded every castle in the land. Her shoulder bumped against Evred’s muscular bicep. He had grown so tall. Hearing his breathing, smelling his distinctive scent fired her belly with longing as they stared out at the torchlit faces and spoke their vows together, their cadences matching perfectly.

  She forced her awareness away from him, an act of will since she could not control her body’s simple but insistent homing, direct as the return of a bird after winter.

  An act of will to ignore the sound of his breathing, so that her breathing did not match its rhythm. An act of will so protracted that everything blurred, leaving only the vague memory of her face aching as each Jarl, new and old, stepped up to speak his vows with right hand laid flat over heart. She and Evred had worked out with care the concessions they would grant each speaker. He spoke well, though his voice grew rough and husky from thirst; hers was little better. Tired, distracted, she by his proximity and he by the reactions he saw in the faces before him, despite their private resolves to stay aware of everything, neither saw the glower, so like his daughter’s, in the eyes of the Ola-Vayir Jarl. They did not see Horsebutt Tya-Vayir’s calculation, or the glee in Branid Algara-Vayir’s face as he spoke for Jarend-Adaluin. They did not see some of the Jarls fade back to the periphery to exchange quick murmurs of conversation.

  Three people grieved in secret.

  Cama and Joret on opposite sides of the throne room avoided so much as a glance at the other though they could feel each other’s presence as a fire more intense than summer heat. But they had promised, and each knew that to come together again would make the parting just that much worse.

  The third was Barend, bracing himself against the heat, the rhythmic shouting. He forced a grin, trying to kindle joy in his heart for Evred and Hadand, who had been dear to him since their shared childhood in the schoolroom upstairs. But the joy would not come, though they looked so happy. Nor could he admit it, not when he stood at Evred’s left as Harskialdna, Royal Shield Arm, the position most coveted in the land besides kingship. He knew Evred meant it as an honor, and he knew that Cama and Hawkeye and all the others would strive to help him to learn what he needed to learn, but the truth was that he would never learn it. Nor did he want to.

  While Evred and Cama and his friends were boys at the academy learning the land warfare he was now supposed to command, he had already been long at sea, and that was where his heart lay. Not in this hot, stuffy castle, smelling of sweat and stone and the pungent, sun-dried grass of the plains. He longed to pace the deck of a fast ship, out in the free winds and the ever-changing ocean, a longing so unbearable he could not fight it as the sound of the drums that accompanied the Jarls out of the throne room thundered in his teeth and bones. Inside his ringing skull his mind rode the wind, seeking the rake-masted trysail Death that had to be sailing, sailing, somewhere in the world, and on its deck Inda and Fox, Jeje guiding the Vixen, Dasta’s Cocodu within hail . . . oh, how he wished he were there!

  Chapter Nine

  "DAMNATION!” Inda smacked the taffrail. A summer storm had tumbled up the river valley bisecting Bren, throwing about spectacular lightning and thunder. Just as the fleet entered Bren’s harbor the rain sheeted down with the density of a poured pitcher, warm as the humid air. This coincided with the sliding of Death past Bren Harbor’s inner island, making it even more difficult for the lookouts to see if the Venn, or pirates, or anybody, lay in wait to attack.

  But that is not why Inda cursed. Fox was in charge of the defense, if defense was needed.

  Inda dropped from the companionway into the waist and glared at the three youngsters before him. All three gangling, unprepossessing, beginning to grow out of the roundness of childhood.

  Mutt surreptitiously flipped up the back of his hand at the other two, the girl hired at Pirate Island, the boy at Ghost Island. “What’s the problem here?” Inda asked. “No. Let’s be specific. Which one of you little walking turds greased that rope?”

  The looks back and forth, furtive, feet shuffling on the wet deck, reminded Inda so forcibly of his scrub days the urge to laugh was almost overpowering.

  But he couldn’t laugh. So he did his best to look stern. “Never mind. No one wants to squeak. I can understand that. But you have to understand this. The Venn might be lying in wait somewhere nearby, out of sight.”

  Mutt sent a look at the others. “So? Then we smash ’em.”

  “With ropes greased?”

  “Storm’d loosen it,” Pilvig said—then clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “I see. So you planned it carefully, then,” Inda said to the red-faced girl. She was quick and clever, round-faced, dark-haired—she was half Chwahir. Had been Nugget’s hire, and her best friend. “A storm is coming—you grease the rope with leddas oil, Mutt comes off watch, falls to the deck, everyone laughs—and the water cleans the rope.”

  Pilvig’s eyes rounded, making it clear she thought Inda was a mind reader.

  Again the impulse to laugh.

  Jug, the new boy (whose ears made the nickname obvious and inevitable) jerked a thumb at Mutt. “He struts. Just ’cause he was on Walic’s ship.”

  “I do not!” Mutt retorted. “You strut, with your stupid uncle bein’ a mage, as if we believed any of those stories—”

  Pilvig’s higher voice cut through the boys’. “You think you’re so sharp a blade, with your uncle and your ghosts on Ghost Island. Nobody sees ghosts. And you can’t take the place of anyone.” She blinked rapidly, flushing.

  Still grieving for Nugget, that much was clear. He remembered how long he’d grieved for Dogpiss, but he had to either bridle them or lose them. “Peppered spud-gruff. Itch weed in the hammocks. Missing trousers. What else has made the trip from Ghost Island memorable?”

  Three pairs of eyes found the deck full of hidden meaning.

  Inda sighed. “Orders. Every sting is going to net you a full day as lookouts. All three of you. Starting now. One on each mast. You can come down when the sun sets.”

  “But—” Mutt began.

  Inda waited, doing his best to emulate Master Gand’s expression from his scrub days. Mutt decided that pointing out dawn was half a watch away was not a good idea after all.

  "Get.”

  They scrambled out and by the time Inda reached the deck, none of the three were visible. As Inda finished a circuit of the deck the rain lifted momentarily.

  “Barge away from the dock,” came the lookout’s voice from above.

  Mutt leaned out, his sailor’s queue sending drops down into Inda’s face, and added, “Someone thinks he’s a king.”

  “Your lookout duty,” Inda informed the three mastheads in a carrying voice, “includes silence. Except for sightings.”

  Cackles and hoots sounded around the ship as the rain started again, hissing against the sails as they rode the last way into the estuary on the height of the tidal flood.

  When the lookout reported the barge clear of the ships anchored in the harbor, Inda picked up the glass from the binnacle and snapped it out. The Guild Fleet barge leaped into existence, silhouetted against the rain-dimmed glow of harbor lights, lamps swinging from its grand canopy. Oars rose and fell, all manned by burly fellows who were probably warriors in guild colors.

  Inda lowered the glass. The rain was heavy but warm, but his crew waited in expectation; he knew—could almost feel—the spyglasses trained on
them from just about every capital ship in the harbor, and probably most of the traders as well.

  “Flash,” Inda said.

  Fibi the Delf, the new hire who had already been promoted to captain of the tops, took over in her unlovely crow squawk. “Halyards! Downhaul! Sheets!”

  Inda glanced up at the wizened, bandy-legged Delf. Fibi stood on a boom watching the hands at the sails.

  Since the day Fibi had come aboard talking of his plan, which had apparently been debated in family councils on the Delfin Islands—a plan hardly a day old, and spoken of only to his captains—Inda had been thinking about the nature of news. He’d come to the unsurprising conclusion that news spreads the faster when it affects you. He hadn’t heard anything at all about home for a couple of years because whatever happened in Iasca Leror held no interest for anyone else. It was as if the Venn blockade had made the entire kingdom vanish from current time, if not from the physical world.

  Thuddud! With a whooshing whump the sails flashed, all at once.

  A royal yacht couldn’t have done better, and his crew knew it, for they’d drilled often enough, first under Walic’s cruel first mate, then under Barend, and now under Fibi. Flashing sails during action meant tight maneuvering, and you could manage it if you had enough crew to fight and sail. Inda’s proprieties had been shaped by the scrupulous first mate of a trader, so he rarely gave in to his crew’s taste for flamboyant approaches outside of battle. Today was an exception: flashing sails was also a demonstration of power, of control, even a threat.

  Approving looks came Inda’s way for this indulgence. None of them but Tau guessed that he was apprehensive at his first encounter with mainland officialdom, an apprehension the more severe since he’d sent Vixen in ahead with a message to warn the Guild Fleet of their arrival. He did not know if that had been a bad decision.