by Ellyn, Court
“That may not be possible, but I know you’d die trying.”
~~~~
When Bethyn was strong enough to travel, she answered the Princess Regent’s summons to court. Laral accompanied her, also at the Regent’s insistence. They towed Lord Downford and his family along with them in a gaol wagon. They looked thin, dirty, and sullen huddled inside the bars. Falyr cursed Laral, who rode alongside the wagon, and shouted at passersby, “Kill this Aralorri! He has no right.” Finally Bethyn ordered a tarp flung over the wagon. How Laral missed Drys’s fists and Kalla’s good sense, but his friends had responsibilities of their own to attend to back home. Without them, he felt as if he stood alone among wolves. It only took one with the gumption to bite.
Because the peace talks had taken place on the more neutral ground at Nathrachan, Laral had missed seeing Fiera’s royal city. Tucked into the foothills of the Shadow Mounds, Brynduvh knew neither straight road nor level ground. Seven grand thoroughfares lined with silver lampposts led uphill to Royal Square. Laral marveled at the slender white towers and steeply sloped tile roofs of the palace, its fountains and terraced gardens. The residence of the White Falcon was like a graceful lady out of fairytales; in comparison, Bramoran, while grand in size and strength, brought to mind the bearded barbarian.
As soon as they were permitted entrance to the palace, Bethyn had her double petition delivered to Princess Ki’eva. Two days passed before a herald came to their rooms and announced, “Her Highness will see you now.”
Bethyn set aside her lute—she had half a dozen of them and traveled with three—and rushed about straightening her hair and her skirts. Laral gulped down the last of his tea.
“Pardons, m’ lady, just the Aralorri,” said the herald.
Eyes large and liquid with sudden fear, Bethyn rushed to Laral. “It’s not about my uncle then. What will you say to her?”
“The truth, I suppose.” He kissed her forehead. “If she doesn’t like it, Drys will take us in.”
“Laral … be careful.”
The herald led him from the guest suites, along one glistening corridor and the next. The floors were polished to a mirror shine, and rank upon rank of useless, ornamental furniture lined the walls and alcoves. Courtiers ignored him expertly, as they ignored everyone outside their sphere of gossip, but he felt their eyes on him once his back was turned. He expected the audience to take place in the fabled throne room where Thorn Kingshield had cut off the White Falcon’s head, but he was admitted to a small receiving room instead. The most beautiful woman Laral had ever seen occupied a high-backed chair between a pair of alabaster columns carved in her likeness. At the peace talks, he had served the high table and had occasion to lean so close to the princess that her perfumes filled his head. But he hadn’t dared look her in the face. This morning, she wore a gown of rose and silver jacquard. Bejeweled butterflies glittered in her golden hair. In her hand, studded with ruby rings, she held Bethyn’s petition of marriage. In whispers, she consulted a councilor about its contents. The man gestured in Laral’s direction, and Ki’eva’s green eyes rose, pinning him. Laral remembered Drys’s comment about her merciless gaze and felt his courage flag.
“Quite the honor,” she said, “welcoming the son of the infamous Lord Tírandon. You may approach.”
Laral found himself still standing on the threshold and scolded himself, Don’t let her judge you a fool, fool. Raising his chin, he marched up an emerald-green rug and snapped a bow as he would for Queen Briéllyn.
“Are all of Tírandon’s sons so tall?” Ki’eva asked, that blade-sharp gaze raking her guest. Surely she was a match for her brother in cunning, and if Laral was any judge, surpassed him in coldness and cruelty.
“I have outgrown them all, Your Highness.”
Examining the petition, she absently waved him to a chair. The councilor bowed out but left the door open. A pair of White Mantles took up position there. Their glares bored into the regent’s guest.
“I ought to dismiss this nonsense out of hand,” said the Regent, laying the petition aside. Her fingers steepled under her chin, and suddenly Laral felt like a rat paralyzed by a serpent’s gaze. “Lady Brengarra is very young, obviously too young to decide wisely whom to marry. Tell me how you met. The chancellor and I can only assume it was after the battle that took place there two years ago.”
“Yes, Highness. During the battle, actually. Wren … Lady Brengarra was attacked by a pair of squires. I stopped them and kept her safe until the battle was over.”
“Ah. Hard to resist a savior.” Somehow, the statement made one of Laral’s most cherished memories seem silly and soiled. “You present a most interesting situation, son of Lander. I am forced to consider what might have been and what is. Had my brother succeeded in unifying the Brother Realms, he would have forced marriages such as the one Lady Brengarra proposes. Fieran lords marrying Aralorri daughters. Aralorr’s sons, of course, would have been hanged on the gallows.” Ki’eva’s grin sent icy fingers skittering across Laral’s shoulders. “But those are hardly present circumstances. I suppose you expect Fiera to feel honored that an Aralorri would deign to marry one of its daughters.”
“That’s not—”
Ki’eva stood abruptly. Laral leapt up, head bowed, and watched the hem of her gown whisk past. “I cannot allow your marriage to proceed, son of Lander.” She stopped before a window overlooking a garden. Old boxwoods shaped a maze, and Laral felt as if he had run into a dead end. She turned to face him. “Unless.” A graceful hand beckoned him closer. It took everything in him to swallow his panic, his anger, his heartbreak and join her near the casement. She waited, daring him to avoid her gaze. When he met it, she added, “Unless you swear your fealty to me and to my brother’s heir.”
Swear fealty to Nathryk? He who showed neither wisdom nor humility, but only hatred and hostility toward his Aralorri captors? Would Laral have behaved differently if he had fallen into Fieran hands? He hoped so.
Ki’eva shifted so close that Laral could smell gardenias in her hair and see that the butterflies were real, dead, dipped in silver, but real. She purred, “Are you truly prepared to turn your back on your forefathers and the Black Falcon?”
“No.”
Ki’eva leaned away again, eyes a fraction wider.
“But neither can I forsake Lady Brengarra. As her chosen, it will be my duty to promote peace between our peoples.”
The Regent considered him in silence, longer than made Laral comfortable. A smile gradually turned the corner of her shiny dyed mouth. “And if peace should be impossible?”
A challenge was it? Very well. “Do you have plans to see peace undone?”
Ki’eva’s eyebrow peeked. “It is not your place to question me in that regard. Of course, I don’t. But my nephew is another matter. He’s a boy yet, but he’s sworn vengeance on Aralorr for what your people did to his.
“I do not doubt it.”
“When he inherits, what then? Do you imagine he will leave you in peace?”
Laral shrugged a shoulder. “I imagine I have a few years to prove my worth, if a man’s worth matters to him at all. I’ll worry about the rest when it happens.”
Ki’eva seemed uncertain what to say to that. She paced, whirled, regarded him as if he spoke a foreign language and required a translator. “Where did you learn this sense of honesty, this, dare I say, honor? Not from Lander, I’d wager.”
“I was squire to both Lords Ilswythe.”
She masked her face against surprise. “Rhorek’s War Commanders? Interesting.” She sank into the nearest chair and drummed her fingers on the arm, slowly, gaze turned inward, calculating.
Drys was right. The Princess Regent was the most terrifying person he’d ever encountered. “You were at the peace talks, then?”
“Yes, Highness. I served you wine.”
Those bejeweled fingers resumed their drumming. “You … love … Lady Brengarra very much, don’t you?”
Where was this line of q
uestioning headed? “Yes, Highness.”
“Yes, there’s no question of that. You wouldn’t dare answer my summons, otherwise. Or you’re a fool, but I doubt that. The young War Commander was feverish with wounds at the talks, if I recall.”
“Yes, Highness, but he recovered.”
“His brother is the avedra who killed my brother, yes?”
Laral gulped, throat painfully dry. “Yes.”
“You know them well, these illustrious brothers.”
“They are my foster-brothers.”
“Are you privy, then, to Aralorr’s recovery, in a military sense?”
Ah, here it was. Laral’s careful journey through the maze brought him at last to the kernel of her curiosity. Could he find his way out again alive? “Not anymore, Highness.”
“But you could find out?” How sweet and innocent she looked, as if she’d asked him to tea.
“No, Highness, I could not.”
The innocence turned brittle. “How am I to trust your oath of fealty?”
Laral clenched his hands behind his back and stared at the wall just past her right ear. “Trust that I will never do anything to incite conflict between your people and mine, and let that be your proof. But I will not spy for you—or for Rhorek—and I will forget you asked if of me.”
Her lovely mouth pinched. “You overstep your place.”
“No, Highness, you overstep yours. I am not the man to spy for you, but nor am I your enemy.”
Those serpent’s eyes narrowed; Laral didn’t dare meet them. “We shall see, son of Lander. Disobedience is the same thing as treason.”
“Is it? Then can obedience be the same as dishonor?”
Her hand slashed between them. “You may go. Before you leave Brynduvh, you will give your oath, or you will leave Fiera and your Lady Brengarra forever.”
Laral bowed and retreated toward the door. Ki’eva’s voice pursued him like a tentacle coiling around his neck: “If I summon you again, be prepared to give me the information I require.”
~~~~
When the andyr trees began to flare burgundy, the households of Tírandon and Brengarra met upon the bridge below Nathrachan. Laral and Bethyn were married over the gliding copper waters of the Bryna, beneath the archway where the arms of the Black Falcon and the White met back to back. The symbol of the chosen venue was lost on no one. In days to come, many an Aralorri and Fieran would recall that ceremony and the hope it displayed for the people of the Brother Realms.
~~~~
5
… for strife of the future is sewn during days of peace.
—Lyric 12, “Crossroads,”
Songs of Dan Ora’as
“Get down, get down!” Kethlyn ordered his soldiers. He crouched low inside the doorway of the falconer’s barn. His platoon of six ducked down behind him. Sawdust and fine feathers drifted on the still air; Kethlyn had threatened his men with their lives if they sneezed. “He’ll be by any moment.”
“When do we attack, Commander?” asked Braeson, the smith’s youngest son. He had contributed the pouch of soot that the rest had used to paint their faces. Kethlyn had to be careful not to get any on his red state doublet.
“After he passes this doorway. Then we attack. We’ll get him this time for sure.”
Ilswythe’s grounds were always packed during Assembly, and for that one week Da’s castle resembled the bustling piers and streets of Windhaven. The Assembly of 985 was no exception. Clusters of highborns ambled across the lawn and along the gravel paths, unhurried. Most discussed their entries for the horse races and harassed each other for wagers. Falcon Guards, soldiers of the garrison, servants, and villagers passed at a quicker pace, bound on one assignment or another. Kethlyn found it easier to hide among this shifting morass of people and noise.
Eliad lingered near the well, chatting with Lord Garrs of Helwende. The latter howled mocking laughter and declared something about “taking Eliad up on it.” Looking smug, Eliad jotted a note in a little black book he whipped from a pocket. At sixteen, he meant to win the squires’ race; he had lost last year to Garrs’s squire and swore he wouldn’t be embarrassed two years in a row. Besides, King Rhorek always had an extra special prize for the winner of the squires’ race. Kethlyn couldn’t wait till he was old enough to enter the races.
In the meantime, he and his troop continued to play their War Games. Ilswythe’s artisans, grooms, servants and stewards permitted their children to play with Kethlyn, but only on the understanding that they never get familiar with him: they had to call him ‘lord’ and treat him as such. Kethlyn carried a blunt wooden sword; the rest wielded four-foot-long pikes. Sticks, really, that they had sharpened against the stone wall. They called him War Commander, and he issued the orders. The commoners’ children accepted this arrangement without question. These things just were. And so, under Kethlyn’s leadership, his platoon had become the terror of Ilswythe. Many a matron bent over her laundry felt the stinging bite of a slingshot’s slug and spun to catch the children snickering and racing away.
Captain Maegeth was always a good sport; she encouraged Kethlyn’s War Games by teaching him and his soldiers how better to handle their weapons. But Eliad proved the best playmate. He prenticed Kethlyn in the arts of stealth and ambush. “Test me whenever you can, m’ lord,” he requested. “The day I’m taken unaware by a kid half my age is the day I resign my position and scrub pots at Bramoran.”
“I think he knows we’re here,” said Eula, the undercook’s granddaughter. She was proud of her rusted colander-turned-helm.
Eliad shook his head in firm denial of the taunts made by Lord Garrs’s squire. Then as he listed the qualities of his new gray racer, his glance darted toward the falconer’s barn.
“Back!” Kethlyn ordered. His soldiers retreated deeper into the shadows. Peeking over the windowsill, he saw that Eliad had drifted closer—and his back was turned. “See? He has no idea. Get ready, men.”
Small fists poised pikes and little bodies grew taut for the charge. Eula straightened her helm, knocked it once with her knuckles for luck, and Stevryn, a groom’s boy, loaded his slingshot with one of the pebbles he had carefully polished himself.
Kethlyn opened his mouth to give the order, but someone tugged his sleeve. Whirling, he found his little sister. “Aw, Carah, how’d you get in here? Go away. And stop sucking your thumb.”
“I wanna p’ay,” she mumbled around her thumb. Carah was only four, far too young to take part in the War Games. Kethlyn’s new rule was that a soldier had to be at least five, but no older than eight. Carah’s dark hair, bound in crisp periwinkle bows, bounced in ringlets. The hem of her dress dragged through the sawdust, hardly an apt uniform for a soldier. How could she scare anybody, dressed like that? Her blue eyes gawked at him, hopeful and eager.
“You can’t play, you tagtail. This is serious. You’re gonna mess up everything.” He jerked her hand from her mouth and shoved her toward the backdoor.
Carah stuck out her lower lip, but Kethlyn ignored her. He and his soldiers drew up a new plan in the sawdust. Carah stomped her foot; her silk slipper sent up puffs of dust and feathers. When that didn’t work, she tried to summon the tears for a really loud fit.
Let us out, she heard.
Carah’s head cocked to one side. The barn was quiet, the older children silent as they split up and recalculated their attack. Only the falcons chattered, clinging to pinewood perches while they ruffled their feathers and preened their breasts. Carah tip-toed toward the cage. A pair of beady black eyes peered through the mesh at her. Free us. Let us fly.
How unhappy they looked, all cooped up. Carah would be nice to the pretty birds. She rose on her toes and stretched her arm, but she was too short to reach the latch. She hopped up and down, grunted and whined, but the latch was still too high. An empty wooden box lay in one corner. With her face scrunched up and red with effort, she scooted the box through the sawdust and into position below the cage. Yes, this would work. Just high e
nough. She climbed onto the box, hooked pudgy fingers through the wire mesh. She was lucky there were only four birds, because she’d only learned to count to five. Shiny, sharp eyes glinted from sleek, black helmets. Their talons looked as long as daggers protruding from bony yellow toes. The nearest falcon shifted feet, leaned side to side, dancing excitedly.
“Where will you fly?” Carah whispered.
The falcon chattered again, and Carah heard in her head, In high mountains, where light rises. Home.
How sad that Master Urlen wouldn’t let them go home. Carah turned the latch, flipped back the brass bar, and swung wide the door.
The hinges squeaked, alerting her brother where he crouched on the threshold. “Carah, no!” He dashed forward to slam the door shut, but the falcons exploded from the mews in clouds of feathers. Their wings beat furiously; their talons curled menacingly. Carah screamed, arms shielding her face, and toppled off the crate. She landed on her back in the sawdust. The falcons flew for the doorway shining with open sky, but two shadows, come to investigate the screams, blocked their way. A talon lashed out. Eliad roared, threw a hand over his cheek, and shoved Garrs out of the barn. The falcons raced for the clouds and vanished over the eastern wall.
“What have you brats done?” Eliad shouted.
“It wasn’t us,” Kethlyn retorted, gawking at the blood seeping between Eliad’s fingers. “It was my stupid sister.”
Carah pushed herself to her feet, brushed the sawdust off her starched pinafore, and raised a satisfied smile.
“Did you, Carah?” asked Eliad. Why did he look so sad?
She planted her fists on her hips. “They wanted me to. They want to go home.”
“You little liar!” Kethlyn shouted.
“I am not—”
Master Urlen burst through the doorway. “My birds!” he exclaimed. “You wicked children, get out! Get out! His Lordship is going to skin you alive for losing his birds.” With irate sweeps of his arms, he routed the troops.