An open carriage rolled by, filled with young ladies in their hastily donned, very best clothes. The owner tugged on the ponytail of the driver, who slowed the horses even more, and all four ladies glanced through the window at him and then eyed his companion with speculative smiles. The royal livery on the outriders, the royal arms painted on Valdon’s open racing carriage, had obviously caused a local stir.
“Damn,” Valdon said, brooding. He gave the young ladies an absent salute, but his mind was back in memory and he never noticed the smiles or the pretty, beribboned dresses. “Two things I learned, being a page under Queen Servitude during those miserable years in Sartor: how to scrub floors and how to laugh. Dascin and I laughed a lot during our page days—and we had some good dalliances, those long afternoons on bare stone when we were supposed to be contemplating the real meaning of service.”
Randon whistled. “Another reason to be glad I wasn’t born a prince. My single visit to Sartor was bad enough. I think being a page for five years would have driven me to drink.”
“Except there isn’t any drink.” Valdon sighed. “I may yet have to give in and marry Fansara.”
Randon made a gag face. “Don’t do it. You haven’t seen her as much as I have these past few years. And when you do, she’s courting you with all her might.”
“But the porcelain pact—”
Randon waved a careless hand. “Take my word for it. Bantas will seal it for another century if you get Fansara off his hands for good.”
“Well, that would mean I have to marry her, yes?”
Randon tossed off the last of his ale. “If you do, I’m off to Sartor. Sitting on benches and eating cold food would be preferable to her tender rule.”
“And you’re trying to talk up another willful beauty?”
Randon shook his head. “Joret isn’t like that.”
“So she has enough manner to hide her nature. Fansara did too, I remember, when she first came to court. Before my mother made a pet of her.” He set down his glass, frowning at the golden liquid catching the light reflected in the diamond panes of the window. “Truth is, we’re all like that aren’t we, to greater or lesser effect? Raised to sell either our rank or our faces for advantage, and then spend the rest of our lives taking that advantage as far as we can.”
“Val.” Randon’s pleasant, mobile face drew downward in a pretense of sourness. “You’re brooding. It upsets me. If you think yourself constrained to do anything you don’t want to, where is the hope for me?”
Valdon laughed as his page appeared at the door and bowed, signaling that his carriage was ready. “All right. I have nothing to brood about. Promise you will talk no more of beauties, for I’ve had enough of them.”
Randon placed both hands at his heart, and followed the prince out. They stepped up into the superbly upholstered royal carriage, leaving behind the pages to pay the shot and drive Randon’s less racy equipage—in addition to Valdon’s closed carriage, used in case the weather turned bad—at a more sedate pace.
Valdon whistled to his pair, who pricked their ears. A flick of the reins and the horses dashed out of the inn yard at a splendid trot.
For a time neither spoke as they bowled up the well-paved road toward the mountain pass that would lead toward home, and all the decisions that awaited Valdon there. While the prince inspected the state of the roads— which were justifiably famous for their excellence—his cousin brooded on the character of courts.
Presently Randon said, “Speaking of Sartor, did you hear whom Queen Servitude finally picked as heir?”
“Lael told me! After all the gabble about her wisdom and insight, she’s gone and crowned that hypocrite Lissais. ‘Service to the Kingdom.’ Oh, they’ll learn what ‘service’ is as soon as the old woman finally croaks. Probably that day.”
“But it’s said Princess Lissais sleeps on a stone floor just as the queen does.”
“Don’t you believe it. Dascin and Naryan of Mearsia swear any oath you can name that she locks her door and forces her servant to sleep on that bare floor. She gets the warm bed. Heirs! I don’t know about this custom Sartor has of picking heirs. It only seems to make people lie and scheme the more. Maybe those Iascans have it right, that the older brother rules, the younger one runs the warriors.”
“Except they fight just as much. And it’s not talk, it’s steel and blood. Look at your Iascan cousins last winter! King, uncle, older brother, all murdered at once, and the younger one comes home to a waiting crown.”
“So he couldn’t have done it himself.”
“His sweethearts did it,” Randon said, nodding wisely.
“You know they’re all tail-chasers, everyone says it. The men go out for six months into the fields and romp with each other. Leave the women all alone. So it has to be true. I can’t imagine anyone leaving J—women behind by choice.”
“Then if the men are all tail-chasers, the women have to be skirt-chasers. Which means your J—woman won’t give me a second look no matter how handsome she is.”
“Not she! You can’t be that stunning and chase girls.”
“If you think that, then you’ve forgotten Great-Aunt Tirthia,” Valdon stated. “The toast of the city, what, sixty years ago, said men belong in the stable and not in the salon? If you didn’t get that lesson every time you misbehaved as a boy, I sure did. Anyway, as for your Joret, she’s probably the Iascan royal cook’s daughter. Not that it matters to me anymore, but it would to Mama and Papa. I’m going to marry Fansara and drink myself purple along with my father.”
Randon grinned, and uncorked the gloat he’d enjoyed until the right moment. “Oh, no. Your horse-faced cousins over the mountain apparently don’t pay any heed, but Joret’s one of the Deis. The western Deis. Descended from Adamas Dei of the Black Sword himself—a line going straight back to Connar Landis of Sartor. She could walk into any court in the world and claim precedence of just about everyone.”
Valdon looked askance. “They don’t pay any heed, over the mountain? Of course. It’s because the Deis are all mad—they talk to spirits, and what, bay at the moon? Your Joret probably keeps hedgehogs as pets, and flings peas at the servants when she’s at home.”
Randon laughed. “They aren’t Marlovans, is all. Live way down south, in the area most recently annexed to Iasca Leror—and there was some old connection with the disgraced Montredavan-Ans, so the current government pretty much ignores them.”
Valdon whistled, then he groaned. “Doesn’t matter. She can be perfect, her family can be perfect, but the way my life has gone so far, it only means we’ll hate each other on sight. You’ll see.”
His gloom made his cousin laugh the harder.
Chapter Nineteen
HYARL Durasnir, Commander of the Oneli, was sitting down to the Restday meal with his officers when the summons-tap of his scroll-case alerted him.
He excused himself, indicated his chief lieutenant should carry on as host in his place, and withdrew to his private cabin off the grand wardroom called the hel, after their formal gathering halls in the Land of the Venn.
The scroll was written in large, angry slants: Send the ships home. Come now. Elgar dead.
He touched the paper to a candle flame and watched it burn. When he was certain that his relief would not show, he returned to the wardroom.
The officers fell silent, scraped back their chairs, and stood.
“We are ordered back to Jaro,” he said. “And I must transfer. Battlegroup Captain Gairad will assume command. ”
They saluted. He withdrew to his cabin. Took out the transfer token he was required to always carry on short cruises or long. Braced himself—and sound, sense, and spirit were wrenched away then restored with equal violence.
He swayed on the transfer square tiles, eyes closed, until the shivering stopped.
When he opened his eyes he found himself in the Port of Jaro tower room, two fully armed Erama Krona at the closed door, dressed in white with the Tree of Ydrasal on their chest
s, their faces impassive. Rajnir stalked between them as if they were walls, scarlet with fury.
Erkric frowned behind him; at any time he was slim to the point of thinness, his silver hair gradually receding from an already high brow, but he seemed gaunt as well as tense. Attenuated, Durasnir thought, as he recovered from the last of the transfer malaise.
Behind them waited Commander Talkar of the Hilda, boots wide-planted to steady him. His jowly face was taut, his forehead hazed with the faint sheen of sweat caused by the reaction to long magic-transfer.
Rajnir thrust a scroll at Durasnir. “Look at that, Hyarl my Commander! I was right! I was right, he was here. And he’s dead.” He rounded on the Commander of the Hilda. “It was your Armor Chief Skir who managed to lose a fight with an unarmed man. What are you training your Hilda in, dying?”
Durasnir winced inwardly. There had never been much amity between the Oneli and the Hilda. The sea lords, as the most ancient of Venn military forms, despised the land warriors as land hungry and short-sighted. Incapable of Ydrasal, the Tree on the Golden Path—the highest Venn aspiration. The army regarded the sea lords as arrogant without just cause. Despite that inherited bias, some individuals among the Hilda had earned Durasnir’s regard, and one of them was Talkar.
Talkar stated in a voice devoid of emotion, “Skir was a capable warrior.” His eyelids flickered, as if to repress a meaningful glance toward the Erama Krona, and Durasnir knew what he was thinking: Skir was trained for war, not for the duties of a guard and gatekeeper, spy and interrogator, as were the Erama Krona.
But no one ever said anything to or about the Erama Krona, unless on the prince’s order.
Erkric said in a low voice, “I wonder why it is that only our witness died, and how many of Wafri’s guards were also there, in addition to the Ymaran mage?”
Unperturbed, Rajnir waved a dismissive hand. It was his Dag’s duty to be suspicious of anything and everything. “Everyone knows mages don’t fight. It took all the yellows to bring Elgar down, and Wafri says they lost one. So Skir might not have been so clumsy. Except in permitting the pirate to get his belt knife. But damnation! Elgar was here—and coming after me. Perhaps it’s just as well he’s dead.”
Erkric bowed his head in a grave nod.
Rajnir said, “You never would have trusted him. I know. You said it nine times nine. Yet I did so wish to send this man against those accursed Marlovans. I’m certain he would have embraced the opportunity to turn on those who betrayed him. Read that.”
He thrust papers at Durasnir, who skimmed them with the rapidity of years of report reading.
When he looked up, he said, “Ramis ordered him to assassinate you?”
“You see? You see? I was right!” Rajnir exclaimed, turning to each of them, arms outflung, blue eyes wide and angry. “Even so, had we had him first, I cannot help but think he would listen to reason. He might not like us, but look how his own people turned against him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, eh?”
Erkric lifted his silver brows in question. Talkar remained still and expressionless; Durasnir read in that wooden expression thoughts roughly concurrent with his own: Ramis had been mysterious, even sinister, in his successful evasions of various Venn traps military and magical, but never once had he done anything stupid. Sending Elgar the Fox to assassinate Rajnir was stupid.
But you did not tell a prince that.
What Durasnir could question out loud was this: “He was under the influence of kinthus and he attacked a man?”
Rajnir paused, then frowned. “You’re right.” He pivoted, tunic swinging. “Dag?”
Erkric opened his hands. “I confess that aspect had not occurred to me either, but then I only had the briefest moment to glance through the papers because we were busy examining the bodies and dealing with the release of prisoners and so forth. We do not know how long the questioning continued, or how much kinthus they gave him.”
Rajnir sighed. “Since it happened in Wafri’s garrison, we must be content with what we were told. I see it as a matter of good faith. I have said I would begin to trust him with some governing responsibilities, and it seems well to begin now, with an event under the shadow of his own castle.”
No one spoke. Durasnir was watching the Dag, whose upper lip twitched in the briefest sneer. It was enough to make his reaction clear, if not his thoughts.
Rajnir had retreated to the window. “Even if his men are not as efficient as ours.” He glared at each in turn. “I have tried to turn a badly handled situation into triumph; I ordered a day of celebration for tomorrow. The bells will be ringing the celebration carillons come morning. We will pretend we are pleased—Wafri certainly was pleased to have ended the threat to my life. You could see how happy he was, and maybe relieved too. I suspect he was frightened that he might be next. Though he has wonderful ideas, he’s never pretended that he has the least skill in war craft.”
“Indeed.” Durasnir’s tone was dry.
Fox’s vigilance was rewarded on the second day he cruised just beyond Beila Lana harbor in his gig. A fleet of fishing craft and a couple of small traders sailed out on the tide— the first in over a week to leave the harbor.
Fox tried to speak to the smallest of them; two wouldn’t answer his hail, kept going full sail, one’s captain yelling from the stern through cupped hands that Norsunder could have Ymar and everyone on the whole damned continent of Drael.
The next obligingly slackened its courses, and several men his own age and younger crowded to the side, many of them raising the wide-bottomed cups common to ships around the world.
“If yer crazy enough to be goin’ in, ye’d better have one of them necklaces,” a boy with red hair called, jerking his thumb toward his own bobbing throat-knuckle.
“Necklace?” Fox shouted back, remembering what Fibi’s captain had said.
“Them damned Venn have got every single Ymaran listed—and any that trade in Ymar—on their damned lists. If you don’t have a necklace, yer as good as signing over yer liberty to a cruise in the box.” He mimed being stuck behind bars.
“How do you get a necklace?” Fox asked.
“Ye stand all day in line, and then have to pay for the pleasure!” The redhead spat over the side. “If ye want it, ye can have mine. Save yerself some trouble. Not to mention a pocketful of good money wasted on those soul-eating Venn.” Back of the hand toward the shore. “We’re never comin’ north again. Ever.”
“Thanks,” Fox called. “I have to land and find one of our mates, got lost after the big storm. What can I expect?”
“I almost lost half me crew,” the oldest one shouted— the captain of the fisher boat. He snorted. “Last time I let these worthless rats ashore for liberty. Some fresh fruit! A little sex! And we’re stuck out on the drink for days with half the crew behind bars.”
“Well it was worse for us,” one of the young men bellowed, buffeting the fellows at either side of him.
“No, it was worst for me!” the redhead roared. “Grabbed the boys like me first—just because we got red hair!”
“But they let ye go first,” retorted the other, and the others hooted and crowed in enthusiastic agreement. He was short, blond—looked like he was probably the captain’s son. “ ‘A little sex?’ Penned up with fifty other men, no bath for a week. Nightland liberty, I call it! And for no reason, other than some shit about pirates. Like we’re a terrible pirate ship!” He pointed to his nets, and one of the others sang, unmusically, the chorus to an old pirate ballad, joined raggedly by his mates.
“But at least they did let ’em go,” the captain yelled over the buffoonery. “And we are, too. I won’t breathe free until I sink this accursed land behind us.”
“Here!” The redhead tossed something metallic down onto Fox’s deck. He laughed. “Yer name is Red Mendin out o’ Lands End if they ask. I’ll never be back there again. Hope ye find yer mate.”
They saluted one another, then the fisher—its crew singing—put before the w
ind and sailed off.
Fox hung the medallion round his neck and raised his own sail, cursing steadily as the craft picked up speed.
Redheads. Pirates. Inda had walked straight into a trap.
Prince Rajnir’s Dag, Abyarn Erkric, transferred to the Dag Hel just off the garrison terrace in the Port of Jaro. While the whoosh of displaced air ruffled round the room the dags rose and bowed, hands open.
The etiquette was dags waited until the transferred one recovered and spoke first. Especially a superior in rank.
Erkric thus had time to take in the wide chamber with its row of western windows. Every Venn seemed unconsciously to gather on the west of any building that had windows, where the long light of afternoon slowly turned gold before it faded; it was a luxury absolutely unknown at home. Even those who professed to be, and were, homesick displayed this weakness, he had discovered.
The light through those open windows painted bright rectangles down the long length of the worktable, illuminating the stacked lists of prisoners, the status of each neatly written in various colors of ink.
“You are finished,” he said. “Elgar the Fox is dead. You may return to your regular duties.”
Ulaffa, the Yaga Krona Dag, had been given charge of the sorting of reports and information. He folded his gnarled hands. “How did that come to pass? Our people were painstaking in following orders.”
“Our people were,” Erkric repeated, emphasizing “our.” “Count Wafri’s mage and men chanced upon the Marlovan, who apparently rose up and slew our observer. The Prince and I inspected the scene ourselves. It appears that all happened as Mage Penros reported, and the prince pronounced himself satisfied.” His opinion of Penros was conveyed with nicety through the title Mage instead of Dag—a nicety that only the Venn understood. “The Prince has ordered a day of celebration tomorrow.”
He paused. No one spoke, so he transferred away again.
“So much for my hunches,” Anchan said, laughing as she chucked her list into the empty fireplace. “I really thought that insolent redhead who said he was from Fal had to be their Elgar.”
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