“None of this was here my last trip up the river. How did they build it all so fast?”
“Amazing what happens when you are working for yourself. The people who build them are the people who will live in them and own them. But say goodbye for now. I am getting cold. Let’s go find some blankets.”
I wasn’t sure about going below yet, despite the chill. “You think I’ll get to come back to the city some day?”
“Depends on how many of the volunteers burst into flames, but yeah. Father expects everything will get moving again after the spring flooding recedes. Armies will be moving everywhere and Rahan will want you close. Maybe you can set Yarik on fire.”
“I would never do that.”
“Really? It would simplify things an awful lot if you choose who was turned to ash. Can you imagine it? You’d rule the whole world.”
“You are a terrible person.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “I was just trying to make you laugh.”
“Don’t joke about death that way.”
“Why not? It’s scary and terrible. What better way to make it less scary than laugh at it? Eastern jokes are almost always about death—or sex.”
That made me laugh.
Pia smiled, hugged me close, and kissed my cheek. We stayed on deck until the city was far from view, but the cold grew to be too much.
She had hold of my hand when we crossed to go below.
37
General Evand Yentif
Winter Exile
The people gathered in the hold beneath the rowing desk were quiet, while above us the 6th division volunteers kept a hard pace on the oars. The galley surged forward with each thump of drums and the grid of oars. The rhythm made me drowsy, while other men wearing a half dozen yellow ribbons paced and bit their nails. Dame Franni couldn’t get the girls from Yellow Row to sit still either. Liv found a spot somewhere forward to nurse, which left me to lean against a post in the center of it all.
The companionway hatch opened and everyone froze as Pia led Emi inside. I judged the olive-faced Havishon girl to be insane, standing there with a smile while arm and arm with Emi.
A couple of the Hemari who’d not volunteered to be there had their hands upon their swords. Their dark looks woke me more than Emi’s appearance. It was the same distrusting look the men in blue had always had for Bayen’s priests.
Pia’s smiled faded as she saw the welcome and they came to a halt while the drums and oars above continued their work.
“Emi, can I get your help please?” Liv called from the far size of the narrow space. “Can you hold Aris for me, please, I only have so many hands.”
I audibly choked, but my reaction was lost amidst the many startled responses from the crowd.
Emi was standing flatfooted when Liv stepped through the dark space, handed our daughter to her, and wrapped the pair in a blanket. Everyone held their breath as we waited for the crackle of flame. I growled and gnashed my teeth, while the rest edged away.
Liv put her arm around Emi while our child was gambled in her arms.
“She’s so little,” Emi said and gave my little girl a hug. I started toward her.
Opan’s snatched my arm and stood in my way. “This is the part where you go about your business as if nothing at all is wrong.”
“And how do I do that?” I hissed. “Ask Harod to recite one of his wife’s plays?”
“Good idea,” Opan said and waved the lanky Aderanion toward us. I wanted to scream.
“Ahh, noble Opan, about to sweep west like Leger into the Oreol. What can I do for you?” Harod asked.
Our gathering was interrupted suddenly by a Hemari sergeant who stepped into the mix like a Sermod interrupting a dance. I started to tell them all to go fuck themselves, when I heard Liv and Emi giggling on the far side of the wall of bodies. I pushed my way through and found Emi changing my daughter’s wrap.
Liv saw me coming and her happy expression became to a hateful mask. I’d not see that look in her eyes since the day I found her half-dead from burns in the snowy remains of Dagoda. I could do nothing but retreat, and it was only a change in the beat of the drums that saved me from punching someone. The galley began to turn and the ship’s boatswain came down to tell us all to get ready to go ashore.
We followed Emi and Liv above deck and the sight of Captain Benjam pacing the rail of the galley anchored further out was something of a relief. I’d been as afflicted a time or two by the need to be moving. A captain that could not hold still had all my sympathies.
Emi went ashore holding my daughter, and I expected Benjam to swoop in to retrieve Opan and Harod, but he did not have my wife’s faith in Emi’s control. The Hemari that had come with us fled to the far end of the wide jetty, leaving Opan, Harod, and I alone along the rail while Liv led the rest ashore.
Harod asked if we’d heard the opening monologue of his wife’s play the Gray Wardens, and Opan used the excuse of his luggage to escape below deck. The strange Aderanion didn’t know how to continue with half his audience gone, so began instead to hum a ballad as though he’d been paid to serenade the frozen jetty.
My fatherly instincts pricked me, but didn’t dare inspire Liv to anger a second time. I and held still instead by imagining myself a Hemari scout with orders to report the surround.
It took a long time, while Harod hummed away to gather in the details of that place.
The cold winds pushed due north, and all the trees along the river’s edge leaned over the river from the constant blow. The west branch was wide and slow there, the far bank was no more than a brown line. The cloudless sky was warmed by a half moon that lit the orchard that enveloped the estate and the snow-dusted fields beyond. The jetty’s footing emptied into ill-kept garden that was walled on three sides by the estate’s main split-level structure. A series of smaller buildings crowded close; stable, servant’s quarters, and work sheds. Natan’s men and the cadre of girls from the Warrens were fanning out into those buildings, while the unmarked galley stood at anchor, its destination and purpose as unknown to me as when I’d first seen it.
Harod stopped humming, tapped me on the arm and pointed at Emi. “Your brother asks too much of you.”
It was not a topic I would engage so I made no reply.
“Perhaps you and your family could get away for a time and visit us this season.”
“In Tadadi?”
“A terrible place to winter, yes, but you would be most welcome.”
The demure departure from his usual antics caught my attention. I was as odd as a galley filled with Arilas and kings that flew no pennants.
“What had you all moving west,” I said.
“We’ve trouble along the border. Some have ideas for how to solve them. Eril has an army of 5,000 lancers and 51,000 regulars ready to move against us in the spring, all of them screaming Bayen’s Creed, if you believe the report of Hemari scouts.”
“You would be wise to.”
“Yes, well, unless the lords of the borderlands can be gathered against them, the west will fall.”
I said nothing, imagining Rahan standing behind me. A pair of longboats from Benjam’s war galley started in, and Harod became more animated. “Sir, do you have capacity to hear me or are you too soured by life to participate?”
“What?”
“Evand, I need you to wake for a moment. I play the fool but do not mistake me for one. Many things are moving in the west. Let me be clear. You were sent here to be out of the way, but there is much you could do. The parallel between our move west now and Leger’s move into the Oreol is very fitting. The borders in the west are broken. The triangle of land between the three western provinces belongs to none of us. The church milked those fertile lands for centuries, but now they have faded to a fistful of old men who managed to avoid Soma’s touch. The people there wish for a new lord—one of their choosing. The Erilion have strength enough to seize control come the spring and attack Evand. Kuet has wealthy enough to buy th
e loyalty of most, and I could choose to kidnap their sons and daughters to keep them in check. War will destroy the west unless someone takes hold of it.”
“Rahan is our—”
“We want our slaves back,” Harod said. “We’ll not follow him or Opan once Yarik is defeated. I mean you, Evand Yentif. You could take the west to your name and with its combined might claim all of Zoviya. It is well known that you have no love for Rahan’s freed slaves. Many in Dahar and Havish feel the same. Your marriage to the Ludoq princess has put you in good stead with the east as well. Think of your position.”
A Hemari sergeant started up the gangway, and Harod switched in the same breath to a theatrical monologue extolling the virtues of western women and their fertile husbands, complete with hip thrusts and growls.
The sergeant retreated, and Harod leaned in, “Can I tell the rest that you would lead them?”
I considered knocking him into the river.
“I can see you have much on your mind. I’ll tell them nothing for now. Light three candles in a window facing the river and we’ll send a ship to rescue you from this exile.”
He roared with laughter then and bowed as though I’d applauded his performance. The sergeant collected him toward the longboats.
“What was he on about?” Opan said behind me, and I turned to see him upon the companionway stairs. I joined him, ready to share the folly I’d heard from Harod.
Opan spoke first. “Will you be joining us in Tadadi this season?”
The sudden question gave me pause. “And if I could?”
“There are men in Eril and Kuet who would speak with you.”
“The lords who are struggling to keep control of the borderlands?”
“You know of our condition then?”
“What would they want of me? A ruler they could trust?”
“They are loyal to Rahan, as am I, but he must hear us or the west is lost.”
“I am in exile here, Opan.”
“Yet you have more access to Rahan than the rest of us combined. You could add a message to him with any of her daily reports urging that he take proper control of the west.”
“I am unlikely to turn him from his plans.”
“Then perhaps you could take his place,” he said and saw my anger. “You think on it, Evand Yentif. What you would do to save your family? I am responsible for many thousands of families and we need someone to take hold of the west before this war tears it all asunder. If you think you can help, whatever help that might be, take a morning cup of mate upon the jetty and we’ll send a ship to bring you to a meeting. The west needs you, Evand.”
He made his way off the galley without another word, and when I moved back on deck the impatient sergeant had the longboats moving back toward Benjam’s ship. They pulled up anchor and continued west as they were aboard.
Liv blocked my bath in the gardens as I made my way toward the estate. Before I could ask after our daughter, she demanded, “What did Harod and Opan want?”
“Nothing good.”
“Stay clear of it. Rahan will not miss any entanglements.”
“That was my first thought. My second was that one of the two might have been acting at his direction to test my loyalty.”
“That is something Rahan would do. Come, love, let’s go check on our daughter before the girls get any ideas.”
This hurried my pace, and we were almost too late. Pia and Emi had opened one of Liv’s trunks and were laying out all of Aris’s clothing. Pia’s mother and father were there but they were powerless to stop the girls. The pair froze as Liv led me in.
“Playing dress up?” Liv asked, “Can I join?”
The girl’s relief was equal to my surprise.
I took in our surroundings then, and my ire ebbed. The house was barren. Only a few pieces of furniture remained, skins hung over broken windows, and the only decoration to be found was a bloodstain beneath my feet and another wide patch of it in the nearby kitchen.
I would have pulled recruits out of such a place by the arm with tales of lusty Krimish women to keep them from despair. Liv looked at me with nothing but pure desperation.
The happiness in Emi’s eyes was a thing to be preserved at all costs.
“A good idea,” I choked out. “Perhaps Master Invern and I could find us all some food?”
Liv and the girls managed small thankyous before beginning a piece by piece examination of all the tiny clothes.
We escaped them and found the kitchen busy. Dame Franni was directing traffic at the center.
“Sirs, you are in the way. Can I help you? A meal will be moving as soon as we are free to get things settled and not one moment sooner.”
“One other thing, perhaps,” I braved to say. “The bloodstains—”
“A second galley is coming in tomorrow with all of Emi’s possessions from the tower. We’ll have rugs enough. Anything else?”
She could have been mistaken for a Hemari sergeant, and I stood straighter as the group considered me.
I turned to Natan. “The grounds are secure?”
“I’ve troops on patrol east and west along the shoreline and three more marching the perimeter of the orchard. We’ll have a proper picket in place beyond the fields by the end of day tomorrow. Emi was also able to tell me that this side of the river is as deserted as expected. There is no one within a half day’s ride of us at the moment.”
“My compliments,” I managed to reply and the room set back into motion. Master Invern pulled me out of the way, and we retreated through a barren dining room to what may have been a library. All that remained was a short stool and a sedan with its back legs missing.
He had a flask, and had managed to snatch a pair of cups from the kitchen. He poured a healthy portions for each of us and plopped himself into the sedan.
“I would toast to how nice it is to be home,” he said, “If you would not take offense, having just been snatched away from yours.”
“”I have no home. My father raised me in a prison.”
“You have found not found one? Not even upon a cot in camp or upon your horse?”
“I am a failed soldier. Shall we drink, instead, to the women that suffer us?”
We drank and he offered me a second healthy pour before I’d finished mine. It was a strong making of divonte, from Thanin, I judged by the smooth almond finish. I coughed from the bite and leaned in for a second.
“You built this place?” I asked.
“My brother did. The winter of ‘68 took him. Our father worked for the chancellery—left us ten lifetimes worth of wealth. I dabbled at making incense for the men my father had worked with. They brought a case against me, and got a verdict before I knew about the charge. They took everything.”
“You could not have avoided them.”
“I could have moved us to Havish and found a place away from the Kaaryon’s clutches.”
“And I could have murdered Yarik in the Red Maple Swamps and preserved the Hemari 5th.”
“Why didn’t we?” he asked and offered me a third pour. A fourth followed.
Young laughter echoed through the house.
He considered his cup. “Have you been through the Warrens, Evand?”
“I’ve not.”
“Neither had I before the church rendered me churlish and stole everything I had. I was a half dead mule, my mind gone, when Emi found me. She took a punch to the face while calling my name. Here was this tiny stranger, so desperate to find me, blood running down her face as she called my name—magicless and alone amidst men who’d just as soon eat her. She faced them all, took my hand, and led me back to my family and to freedom. I’d give my and my family’s to preserve her.”
I considered my empty cup. “So, perfect beings that we are now, what should we do tomorrow to keep our daughters alive a bit longer?”
He had no good ideas, and I said, “Not much for either of us to do besides keep Emi safe and happy, I suppose.”
“Well,” he
said, clearing his throat as he considered his depleted flask, “Not sure any more of this going down out gullets will help.”
I handed him my cup. He put the cups and flask upon an empty bookshelf, stumbling as he did so.
“They might like a fire,” he said, “It will be cold in here until we can get the windows replaced.”
This began an adventure I am glad to say no one saw. We found the woodshed empty, stumbled through the dark in search of an axe, and drunkenly mauled a harmless pine until it fell into the thick boughs of its neighbors. We had no good idea what to do from there, so blistered and bruised, we sat down in the snow.
“You’ll not want to make a deal with anyone from the west,” he said.
“That obvious?”
“The new crop of merchants and bargemen along the river will want to talk to you as well. You’d end up with your throat cut, throwing in with them though.”
“Is there anyone else out there looking to hitch themselves to my name?”
Alsonvale might want—”
“I’d rather not hear—” I tried to say.
“And I’m sure you could go south and rally the lesser Urmandish lords cut off from Escandi by Rahan’s galleys.”
“Master Invern, please.”
“You’d probably be able to sway half the Warrens your way, too, as much as Emi likes you. There are rumors you’ll take her for a second wife.”
He saw my face then through the moonlight, and I expected a sheepish grin. His face remained cold and hard. “You asked.”
Footsteps startled us and Natan appeared. “Liv would like to know if you intend to freeze to death out here or if you’d prefer to read the girls a bedtime story.”
“It’s so late,” I said.
“They’ve begged to stay up with hopes you’d finish ... whatever it is you are doing and come inside.”
We were a mess of sap and slush but managed to follow him.
“What were you doing?” Natan asked.
“Firewood. The shed is empty.”
The Vastness Page 35