by Kirby Crow
Because others could use them against you, or you could lose them. For the first time, Scarlet began to understand how much of a burden he was to Liall, and how much dread he had brought to Liall’s life. If they could have stayed in Byzantur, he would have brushed off Liall’s worries, but a king is not a bandit. The fears that stalked a Kasiri atya’s heart were the same as any Byzan peasant’s. A king had so much more to worry about, so many more people looking to him for leadership.
“I wish we could have stayed with the krait,” Scarlet said mournfully. “We could have made a life of it, he and I. Even bandits get to choose who they marry.”
“I cannot picture my king as a bandit,” Tesk said, vastly amused. “Was he a good one?”
“I don’t know,” Scarlet said honestly. “But his people loved him.”
“Now that I well believe.”
“You love him, too, don’t you?” Unlike with Chos, Scarlet was not afraid to hear the answer. He sensed that Tesk’s idea of love was quite different than other men, or rather the expression of it. Despite all the time he had spent with Tesk, the man had never once made him feel like an object of desire, and it was more than just lack of attraction. With Tesk, there was a general absence of desire toward anyone, man or woman.
He’s simply not interested in folk that way, Scarlet thought.
“Everyone loves the king. Most everyone,” Tesk amended. “To serve is a Setna’s purpose. All men serve their kings. It is common. But it is a rare honor to serve a great king, and you must understand that King Nazheradei is a legend among Rshani. First, he was a hero, then he was disgraced, exiled, presumed dead, and when he reappears, he does not do so alone.” He tapped Scarlet’s shoulder fondly. “But with another legend at his side.”
Scarlet made a rude sound. “I’m not a legend.”
“Believe me, you are. You and all your kind.” Tesk tugged on the silver buttons of his glove. “And we must keep you safe, mustn’t we?
Scarlet considered before he answered. “Why are you doing all this for me?”
“Perhaps I'm not.”
“Oh, now you're not my friend, eh?”
“I didn't say that. Nor would I ever imply it. I am your friend, ser. I’m also the Crown’s man.”
“If you had to choose, would you act in your kingdom's interest or mine?”
“Thankfully, my choice is simple: they are one and the same.” Tesk gave him a long, measuring look. “You value yourself too little, ser Keriss, and you are mistaken to assume that your only importance to Rshan lies with your position as the companion of the king. You are worth much more than that.”
Scarlet rubbed his hands together. Even sheathed in fur-lined gloves, they were so cold he could not feel his fingers. “To who?”
“Many,” Tesk said cryptically.
“Oh, many. And I’m a blue-arsed chicken.”
Tesk laughed. “What?”
“It’s a Byzan saying. It means you’re lying. I know you’re only being kind, but you’re still lying.”
Tesk shook his head. “I am not, I assure you. Just because the people who are pleased with the arrival of a Hilurin on our shores are not vocal about it does not mean they don’t exist. There are other cities besides Sul, my friend. Other baronies than Uzna and Nau Karmun.”
“You mean in the east?” Scarlet looked up at him. “Ressanda is an eastern baron.”
“You will not be convinced, I see.”
“Not likely, no. I’ve had enough insults and sour looks to know where I stand with you people.” Scarlet realized how rude that sounded, and sighed. “I crave your pardon, Tesk. I’m in a terrible mood. Kidnapping and a sore arm will do that to me.”
Tesk patted him gently on the head as if he were a child. “I take no offense.” He began to chuckle again.
Scarlet narrowed his eyes, fearing he was being made fun of. “What?” he demanded.
“How could you possibly know if a chicken’s arse is blue? Too many feathers!”
TWO LONG DAYS PASSED before Tesk ordered the ship to steer close to land. No word had come to him from Liall, but Tesk had informed Scarlet that the king had been persuaded to leave Sul with the promise that he would be reunited with his t’aishka before the army reached Starhold.
“Is that very far?” Scarlet had asked Tesk anxiously.
“It’s not a short journey, but we intend to intercept the king much sooner than that, at Kingstone.”
“What’s that?”
“A freerider hold. The freeriders are not allied to any barony or lord, only to the Crown. Patience, ser. All will be well.”
Scarlet was not reassured, and he spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in a comfortable bed given to him. The cabin was warm and Margun stood vigil outside his door against intruders, but he could not sleep. It was not fear for himself that kept him awake, only pain for what Liall must be going through on his account.
When he woke, Qixa knocked on his door, dressed in what Scarlet supposed was full mariner regalia, his shoulders dripping with gold, and a broad black hat on his head, adorned with a cocky feather.
“There’s a thing to be done on the quarter deck, ser. You’re to be present.”
Scarlet sensed no peril. “All right,” he said, his curiosity aroused. What now?
Margun and Tesk stood at attention. Margun’s hands were clasped, his hair bound away from his face. Tesk held a long, two-handed sword in his hands, sheathed and wrapped with a sword belt. Margun’s blade.
Qixa took up position to their left and clapped his hands for silence and attention from the watching mariners on the main deck below. Margun was clad in his usual armor, the red badge of the keriss solda prominent on his breastplate, his cloak black with a thick crimson border.
Tesk gestured for Scarlet to approach. “If you will, ser.”
At Tesk’s nod, Margun went down on one knee to Scarlet. He bowed his head.
“I swear by body, blood, limb, and life that I would be the vassal of Keriss kir Nazheradei, of the house of Camira-Druz. If he will accept my service, I will obey him until death or he releases me.”
Scarlet was touched and in no little amount of awe. “Is this what you really want, Margun?”
Margun’s bowed head moved in a nod. “Yes, my lord.”
Tesk held the sword out to Scarlet. Scarlet cleared his throat and took it in both of his hands. He offered it to Margun.
“Vows such as this cannot be broken easily,” he said, pitching his voice to carry over the sound of waves and wind. “I understand what service is, what nobility is, and what it means to offer your loyalty. But take this sword from me only if you’re my friend, Margun. Don’t do it for any other reason.”
Margun looked up, surprised. “I am your friend, ser,” he said slowly. “You’re a man worthy of friendship.”
Scarlet hesitated. Vows go both ways. Could he live up to such an oath? He must try, at any rate. “Then I accept your oath.”
Margun received his sword, rose, and belted it at his waist, then knelt once more. Clueless, Scarlet looked to Tesk for guidance.
“The kiss of peace,” Tesk whispered.
“Oh!” Scarlet bent and placed a quick kiss on Margun’s forehead. “Never lie to me again,” he murmured for Margun’s ear alone.
Margun shook his head slightly. “Never.”
The next morning, the ship anchored in a snug bay ringed with cliffs of solid ice. Five skiffs were lowered for the landing into the choppy sea, and Qixa ceremoniously escorted them to the rail to say farewell.
Scarlet remembered Jochi's lessons well enough to know that he should not bow to a mariner. Bugger that. He’s saved me again. He bowed low, letting his right arm swing wide in a courtly gesture, and enjoyed the rise of whispers around them and how the captain’s bull’s chest puffed out to make him even broader.
Qixa drew a square of folded paper from the neck of his tunic, a gaudy yellow affair with threads of crimson. The captain was beginning to look the part of
a pirate
The paper was sealed with a bit of unstamped red wax. “If you'd be so good, ser, this message is for the king's eyes only,” Qixa said.
Margun put his hand out for it, but Qixa snatched it back. “I said for the king's eyes only, and if I can't put it in his hand, there's only one other hand I trust, small as it is.”
Scarlet was warmed by his words. “I will take it to him. No other will touch it. You have my oath.” Then he spied Oleksei watching them from the quarterdeck. Oleksei sneered openly at Scarlet.
The oath of a lenilyn slut, seemed to echo in Scarlet’s ears, but he walled that off. I will not give him another thought. He's not worth it. He was never worth it. How could I have ever been jealous of Oleksei? It's me Liall loves. It's me he's always loved.
Margun allowed Qixa to place the parchment into Scarlet's hand. Scarlet tucked it safe between his virca and his shirt and smiled a last time at Qixa, liking the man greatly. “Until we meet again, Captain. Go with your gods.”
“And you with yours, ser.”
Then it was down the precarious rope ladder to the skiff, where Scarlet clung grimly to a brace as the mariners rowed to a narrow patch of shore between cliffs.
“Why are we taking so many men?” Scarlet asked Tesk, his teeth set against the freezing wind.
“They’re for your protection, ser. I am sorry for the cold.”
Scarlet laughed shortly. “As well apologize for the sea, unless you can do something about it.”
“Being mortal and not a storm god, I confess that I cannot. How is your arm?”
“It’ll be fine. No need to tell Liall.” He glanced at Margun. “I mean it. Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him about Oleksei, either.”
“If you think he will not hear of these matters long before I have an opportunity to whisper them to him, then we are not speaking of the same king, but I will make a pact with you; I shall not tell the king that we encountered that young and very stupid mariner who insulted you, and you shall not tell the king that I did not kill him for his words.” Tesk looked sideways at Scarlet's gloved hands. “And we shall not mention... other matters.”
“We call it the Gift,” Scarlet murmured, looking away. Tesk’s eyes saw too much.
“And you were tempted to use it on that rude mariner.”
Scarlet pressed his lips together. How much does he know?
“So tempted that you found it difficult to control yourself. You were afraid.” Tesk nodded. “I was with the Setna for a long time. The powers of the Hilurin have always been of interest to us. We have no gods in Rshan, or none as you would recognize. Whoever our gods are, they do not send such abilities our way. If gods do watch over we Rshani, they have benevolently ignored us for a great while. Wise of them, I believe.”
“Do you think so? Deva seems to be wondrous scarce at times, too. But gods have a way of showing up when you least expect them.”
“You speak as if you had knowledge of such things. If a god appeared to me, I would soil my breeches and run to the nearest taberna to get blind drunk for a month to cure me of the experience. Has the goddess ever spoken to you personally?”
“Yes,” Scarlet said reluctantly, wary of being mocked, feeling raw and strangely exposed. “I’m not sure you’ll understand. She didn't speak to me, exactly. She...” he groped for words, aware that Margun was listening. “It was more like she was speaking through the clouds and the sky, telling me what to do, how she would help.”
Tesk lifted an eyebrow. “The clouds talked to you?”
Scarlet scowled. “I said you wouldn't understand. How could you? You're not—” he closed his mouth abruptly.
“Ah, there it is. There. You were going to say ‘You're not Hilurin’.”
“Well, you're not,” Scarlet answered peevishly. “We're different, you and I. What's wrong with saying so?”
Tesk shrugged. “Nothing at all. There are great differences in our peoples: differences that go beyond just skin and hair. Except that you avoid saying so, and we do not.”
“And when your lot do say so, it's with words like non-person and outlander and thing.” And whore.
“Regrettably, you are correct. Instead of acceptance and understanding, we have gone the fool's way of being proud of traits we have achieved through no merit of our own, such as being born Rshani. We could have chosen to be proud of our culture, our machines and agriculture, our medicines, architecture, our way of life—all of which are far superior to your Byzantur, by the way—but instead we choose to honor something which even a stable boy can achieve, which is looking like we all look.”
“Snow-haired, stuck-up, clod-footed giants.”
Tesk chuckled. “We do not all have white hair. Most of us do, true, but there are an increasing amount of Rshani who have golden hair, or even a little red. While a touch of gold is considered a pleasing variant, red hair is decidedly foreign, even undesirable.”
Scarlet thought of Ressilka. “Some of your nobles have red hair.”
“The eastern coast does more trade with foreign lands than the west. While outlanders are forbidden on land anywhere in Rshan, there are cities where the rules have been bent and places where the king's eyes do not see.”
“Like Tebet,” Scarlet said. He wondered if Tesk was attempting to pass on information to him without seeming to, as Jochi often had. “But I thought your people were in favor of the king marrying Ressilka.”
“Tebet is in favor of the king making a match with Lady Ressilka. The court is in favor of it because they value their power and rank and wish the monarchy to continue unthreatened. It is said that the lady in question is in favor of it, as any young girl would be at the prospect of marrying a strong and handsome king. The baron of Tebet is especially in favor of it, you can be sure. But the people?” Tesk shook his head. “I would not say that the people are of one mind on this. While Lady Ressilka holds the name and title of Camira-Druz and—like the king—is one of the few remnants of a vanishing line, it is in name, only. Few of the common people consider her a true Camira-Druz. Her lord father has Morturii blood. Too much Morturii blood, some say.”
“Some?” Scarlet pressed. What was he supposed to do with this information? It couldn’t be anything Liall didn’t already know.
“All the common people say it,” Margun supplied quietly, his eyes on Tesk as if daring him to command him not to speak. “There is a bit of wisdom in Kalas Nauhin: The strongest branch is closest to the trunk. Baron Ressanda is sometimes called Baron Resalder. Do you know what that means? A resalder would be a red oak in your language, but the way it is said, it means red twig. Not even a branch. That is because Ressanda's bloodline is far from pure stock. Some of our nobility even believe that the Lord Baron’s daughter should be stripped of her surname, which she only carries courtesy of her imprudent mother. If you want the truth, ser, the king has used up what little tolerance the barons have for foreignness by bringing you here, and by declaring you to be his t'aishka. Now if he takes a wife that many consider to be outlander herself, and breeds heirs on her, heirs that will rule over them one day... You see the difficulty, I trust.”
“Oh, I see the difficulty all right,” Scarlet said. “We have a saying in Lysia, too: damned if you do, and damned if you don't.”
“Look to the shore,” Tesk said abruptly. He rose and pointed. “Your men are here before us.”
“My...?” Scarlet turned. A party of riders on horse emerged from the long shadow that the high cliff cast on the shore. He recognized some of the faces of the keriss solda, though they did not wear the red badge. “Margun’s men.”
“Yours,” Margun said firmly.
Scarlet sighed deeply. How much longer before he was reunited with his wolf? “Liall must be so worried.”
“I suspect a few heads have rolled by now,” Tesk said. “Joking,” he added, when Scarlet threw him an appalled look.
“You’re not.”
Tesk was unbothered. “No. The king’s t’aishka was almost
assassinated. I expect many heads are resting on spikes right now. The best we can hope for is that they are the right heads.”
Scarlet swallowed hard. Men beheaded on his account! What would Deva have to say about that? He would need to find a shrine to pray at, but there were none in Rshan, or at least none that he had seen. Did he really need one, though? Scaja had told him that Deva was everywhere, in the soil and sky, in every breath and thought. If that was true, what matter if there were no templon?
Gentle Deva, he prayed quickly, looking up at the pale sky with its cloudy blot of sun. Maybe you can’t hear me all the way across the sea, I’m that far from home. But if you can, if you’re listening, don’t let anyone suffer on my account, especially not Liall.
The hull of the skiff scraped on sand and a mariner leapt nimbly over the side into the shallow waves. He took the tow-rope over his shoulder and dragged them easily to within a few feet of shore.
When Scarlet would have jumped over the side like the rest of the men, Tesk scooped him up in his arms and lifted him bodily out of the boat.
“Here now!” Scarlet protested, instantly red-cheeked and furious.
Tesk walked a few steps and set Scarlet’s boots on the damp sand. He bowed.
“My apologies to your dignity, ser Keriss. Boots and clothing take time to dry, and we cannot stop to make a fire.”
Scarlet scowled and set his rumpled cloak to rights. “All right then,” he grumbled, unwilling to argue with plain sense and look even more the fool. He was also very cold. Liall had always taken special care to have a sturdy fire banked in the hearth of their rooms, though it made him sweat and he often joked that he needed so many baths to cool off.
I did not appreciate that as I should have, Scarlet thought. I just complained.
Margun brought him a horse, a dark-maned beast with maroon eyes and a chestnut coat. The keriss solda were glad to see him, and Scarlet spotted smiles and looks of relief among his guardsmen. They had worried for him. It made his heart lighter.