“I’m going to Tobol An,” he said, and felt relief sweep through him as he said it.
They came to their abandoned camp at the foot of the mountains and stopped to forage for food. Then they began to climb, shivering in the cold wind blowing across the snow. The rumors had been true then, Val thought. Winter had not ended.
No apparitions appeared in the mountains; Val thought that Anthiel’s verses might be protecting them. Even so their second journey seemed to be much harder than their first. Without horses they were forced to trudge through the snow on foot, and at night they slept wrapped only in their cloaks. One of the men took sick and could barely continue for the coughing that racked his body. For the first time Val understood what his men had gone through while he had sat at his ease on his horse, and he marveled at their hardiness. There were more ways than one to be a hero, he thought.
On his second day in the mountains the wound in Val’s leg began to ache, and by the third it pained him so greatly that he was forced to rest several times. He found a tree branch and used it as a cane, walking carefully along the snow-laden trail; the other men stopped several times to wait for him.
And always, as they picked their way through the snowdrifts, they kept one eye toward Shai in case of pursuit. They could see no one on the trail behind them, but the snow made it impossible to look down into the plain. He hoped that the Shai had decided to let them go; it would not be worth the trouble to follow them when they could have their pick of slaves in Etrara.
Finally they came to the plain of Wathe. On their second day of marching Val bid good fortune to the other men and turned south. The food he had gathered at the camp was running low, but he went a little faster now. He would see Taja again, and Pebr, would sit in their stone cottage while the harsh wind gusted against the door.
He traveled for several days, favoring his injured leg. On his third day alone he came to a bridge made of weathered oak planks. He crossed it, realizing with surprise that the noisy hurrying river beneath him must be the Darra, which had turned south from Etrara.
On the other side of the river, fern and wet green moss climbed the banks and fanned out onto the shore. Tall trees shadowed the path. As he walked he left the sound of water behind; the trees became more massive, silent, oppressive. They seemed dry as paper, the fallen leaves the accumulation of years.
He had reached the Forest of Thole, he realized, and he turned south once more, hoping to leave the forest completely. After a while he saw the weak winter sun breaking through the trees, and he hurried out into the light. He kept the ancient trees on his right, not wanting to return even to search for food. He had had enough of magic, he thought.
Finally the houses of a village appeared ahead of him. For a moment, filled with hope, he thought he had reached Tobol An, but as he came closer he saw that the town was far larger than Taja’s village. Soria, he thought, remembering when he had gone there to buy clothes. Pebr and Taja had gotten candles and soap and bolts of cloth at the same time.
Evening had begun to fall, the strange oppressive dusk that seemed to blanket the land earlier and earlier since the Feast of the Ascending God. He did not want to stop, did not want to speak to strangers, but his leg hurt too badly to continue. He went into the village and found an inn.
The common room was crowded. He limped between the trestled tables and called for the innkeeper. A man hurried toward him. “I need a room for the night,” Val said.
“Did you fight?” the innkeeper asked. “What news of the war?”
“Etrara’s fallen.”
A dozen people in the common room began to speak at once. “Fallen, did you say?” one of the men asked, louder than the rest.
“Aye.”
Something in the way Val spoke silenced their questions. The innkeeper gave him a key, and he walked slowly up the stairs. They had to hear it sooner or later, he thought. But he was too weary to stay and talk; he wanted only to sleep.
He had an early breakfast and set off the next morning. A day’s walking brought him to a ruin from the time of the wizards, a huge black boulder that seemed made of glass. The sight heartened him; he was getting close, then. For the first time in a long while he began to sing.
Two mornings later, as the weak sun lightened the sky, he saw Tobol An, approaching it from the east rather than the north this time. The white spire of the library gleamed against the horizon. As he came closer he saw the familiar stone cottages rising from the barren plain, huddling together as if for warmth. A gull called overhead, and he could smell the complex salty odor of the sea.
He felt hunger and weariness strongly now, and the wound in his thigh ached sharply as he walked. It would be good to have a meal by the fire, and a bath, and to sleep for a very long time.…
Suddenly he stopped. A group of people dressed in fantastic costumes stood by one of the houses, all of them arguing furiously. Actors, he thought. What in Callabrion’s name were actors doing in Tobol An?
Tamra and her friends had acted for the love of it and never for pay; their high station forbade it. Their performances were only for the men and women of the court. Other companies in the city acted professionally, and had the patronage of one noble or another. But less fortunate, masterless troupes roamed the countryside and put on performances wherever they could, in barns or alehouses or open fields, hoping to catch the eye of a rich man or woman and exchange a play for one night’s shelter in a manor house.
These women had to be masterless, Val thought. Why else would they travel to tiny Tobol An?
He came closer. The women were beautiful, he saw, fairer by far than the slatterns he had expected. One of them, wearing a dress of blue brocade, turned and looked at him.
His breath stopped. “Taja,” he said finally.
“Val?” Taja said, lifting her skirts and hurrying toward him. “Val—it is you! Where have you been? Did you fight? What happened to you?”
For a moment he could not speak, amazed by the sight of her as a noblewoman, a woman of the court. He had thought of her so often during the war, he realized; it had been the image of her that had sustained him through all his pain and hunger and hardship. Now, seeing her, he felt as if he had come home.
“I fought, yes,” he said. “Not very heroically, I’m afraid. I was captured, and managed to escape. But what of you? The last place I would have expected to find you is in an acting troupe.”
“They needed someone to play Jerith. Galin’s wife, in The Tragedy of King Galin. I have three sentences to speak.” She laughed.
He glanced at the colorful troupe. One of the women looked like—But no, it couldn’t be. “Some friends of yours are here as well,” Taja said evenly. “Narrion and his wife. Tamra.”
“What in Callabrion’s name—”
“They had to flee. Narrion was on the Queen’s Council—the Shai would have imprisoned them if they hadn’t left. Narrion came here once before, with you, and he remembered it. Tamra and her friends disguised themselves as traveling actors—they got away just as the city fell.”
“What of the others? Callia, and Mariel?”
“I don’t know. Callia would know better than to come to Tobol An.”
“What do you mean?”
“She sent troops here,” Taja said, speaking quietly. “She wanted to find your birth records. Don’t worry—the records are safe. But we were caged, and—and tortured. I was tortured on the ladder.”
At first Val thought she was speaking metaphorically. Poets who had had ill luck often said they had been tortured on the ladder of fortune. But she continued to look at him with her level gaze, and he realized that she had truly been subjected to the ladder. She had been tortured for his sake.
He remembered thinking that Tobol An, at least, was safe, that Taja would never know the horrors of war. He cursed himself for his stupidity. “I’m sorry,” he said, hearing as he spoke them how inadequate the words sounded.
“It’s all right, Val. It’s all right. We came t
hrough, and the troops are gone—”
“What about Narrion? He was on the Queen’s Council, you said. Didn’t he have something to do with sending the troops here?”
“He says that he wasn’t in the inner circle, that he had little power in the council. Pebr believes him, and most people in the village will follow Pebr. They respect him.”
Val shook his head. “Narrion could sell wine to the Shai if he wanted.”
“Do you think he’s lying?”
“I don’t know. Yes. Yes, he’s lying, if not about this then about something else. He’s a liar. Don’t trust him, Taja.”
“Don’t trust whom?”
Val turned quickly. Narrion stood there, his arm around Tamra. “Good fortune, Narrion, Tamra,” Val said, nodding toward them in a slight bow. “Taja tells me you had nothing to do with sending the troops to Tobol An.”
“No. No, that was Callia’s doing. Why did she want the troops here, by the way? And why did Gobro send you here in the first place?”
Did Narrion truly not know? It would be fortunate if Callia had told no one of her suspicions. “I don’t know,” he said.
Narrion shook his head. “And you call me a liar, Val.”
“Yes, I do. A liar, and a conspirator.”
“Gobro told me to bring you to Tobol An—it was no doing of mine. I thought we’d agreed to put that behind us.”
“You’d agreed. I haven’t agreed to anything. And you bringing me to Tobol An was the least of your treachery.”
“I explained everything to you.”
“I don’t trust you, Narrion. I’d give a lot to know what you’re planning now.”
“Nothing, Val,” Narrion said. “Nothing, I assure you.”
One of the actors called out, “We’re rehearsing act three now. Tamra, we need you. And Taja—you too.”
Taja and Tamra joined the rest of the troupe. Narrion followed them. Val watched him go. Was it just ill luck that had brought Narrion here, to Tobol An? Val would have to be vigilant now; it could prove disastrous if his cousin guessed the secret of his birth.
Taja took her place among the rest of the women. He had never realized how beautiful she was. Val shook his head. Narrion, and Etrara, and the Shai—none of them mattered now. The most important thing in the world was seeing her walk.
Rakera took Mariel with him when he and his men went after Callia. He assigned her two guards but Mariel thought that he might have saved himself the trouble; the pain in her head was so great she could barely move.
They reached the manor house of Lady Godemar’s relatives after a half day’s ride. The doors were barred against them, but once the Shai battered them down the people of the house offered no further resistance. The Shai hurried inside, spreading out to find all the members of the household.
Within a few moments everyone had been brought into the vast banquet hall. Mariel saw her sister immediately. She had changed into servant’s clothing, as had the other members of the court, but the way she walked, holding her head high, was unmistakable. The two women looked at each other and Mariel looked away quickly, worried that the Shai would ask her to identify her sister. Worse, she feared that Callia would guess who had betrayed her. Poor Callia, Mariel thought. All her life she had dreaded becoming a servant.
But Rakera did not even look at Mariel. Instead he took a coin from the purse at his side. A gold sovereign, stamped in the reign of Queen Callia.
He held the coin up to each of the women in the hall, servants and nobility alike. Twice he paused for a moment and then continued on. Finally he came to Callia.
Carefully, almost gently, Rakera pulled back her peasant’s hood. Her golden hair shone in the light from the windows. Even her expression was similar to that on the coin, imperious, unyielding.
No one spoke. Rakera led her to another of his men. “I want to know who the rest of her courtiers are,” he said. “And anything else she chooses to tell me.”
The man took her into another room. After only a few minutes Mariel heard a deep, terrible scream. None of Tariel’s children can stand up to torture, Mariel thought in despair. We should all have been drowned at birth.
Another scream came from the next room. Mariel put her hands over her ears.
After what seemed like an eternity the man returned alone to the banquet hall. He went unerringly to Talenor’s wife Sbarra, and then moved on to others of the court. Soldiers separated the men and women he had picked out from the servants and peasants of the household.
“Where—What happened to my sister?” Mariel asked.
“Dead,” the man said.
Mariel slumped against her guard. Was this why she had been brought with them, so that she could witness the result of her treachery? Would Callia haunt her now as Gobro did? Perhaps her society would consist entirely of ghosts; she did not think she was fit for the company of the living.
“What will happen to us?” Sbarra asked.
“Nothing,” Rakera said. “Nothing as long as you do as you’re told. We’ve treated Mariel well, haven’t we, Mariel?”
Very well, Mariel thought. Except for killing my brother and sister. She said nothing.
“She said something before she died, sir,” Callia’s torturer said. “Something about another brother.”
“Another brother! How many bastards did this Tariel have?”
“This one might not be a bastard, sir. She thought he could be the rightful heir.”
“The rightful heir,” Rakera said. He looked thoughtful. “They will not like this news in Shai—it could prove dangerous to us, very dangerous. Was Tariel married, then?”
“He seems to have been. The queen said something about a library, birth records. I didn’t fully understand her—she was babbling by then.”
“Do you know the brother’s name?”
“Yes, sir. Valemar, she said. And she gave me a description, and the name of a village he might have gone to if he isn’t in the city. Somewhere called Tobol An.”
Nine
“WAR BELONGS TO SCATHIEL,” OSA, one of the actors, said. “Everyone feels cold when war comes.”
“No—war is hot and fierce,” Tamra said.
“Not for the dead,” someone said. “No one is as cold as the dead.”
“I was never so cold as in this last war,” Val said. “Scathiel had this one, if none of the others.”
The actors sat before the hearth in Pebr’s cottage, along with Val and Narrion and Taja. Pebr had scowled when he had seen them coming, and had hurried off to the cottage of a friend. He had done this every night the actors had visited; his dislike for the court of Etrara had, if anything, grown stronger in the months Val had been away.
Val sat on the floor near Taja and stretched his legs out in front of him, grateful that the pain had gone. Mathary had given him some salve for his wounds and they had healed quickly.
“And poetry?” Taja asked. “Who does poetry belong to?”
Val looked at her, pleased. She had never spoken at one of the gatherings before. Osa and a few of the others were looking at her as well; probably they hadn’t expected a daughter of the fisher-folk to understand court games.
“Poetry?” Osa said. The actor had pale brown hair that fell to her shoulders and curled back toward her face. She wore large round spectacles that she removed before every performance; now they glinted in the firelight. “I don’t think—”
A slightly puzzled tone had entered her voice, as if she was uncertain how she had come to address one of the lower rungs. In fact, Val thought, annoyed, Taja’s question had been well within the rules of the game.
“Yes, poetry, very good,” he said quickly. “Poetry belongs to—to both the gods, of course. Poetry helps us ascend—”
Three or four people cut him off with cries of “Unfair! Unfair!” The point of the game was to assign each attribute to one god or another.
“Poetry is like music—”
“Not at all—poetry is more like magic—”
Val watched them as they argued. He had never seen before how unimportant these games were, how ineffectual all the court was. Etrara had fallen, and still they danced the old measures as though nothing had happened. But then he had done the same; he had even discussed virtue and ambition with one of the barbarous Shai. For the first time he realized that that man was dead now, that he would have no more discussions on any subject again.
How could he have thrown in his lot with these people, all glitter and trifles? How could he have pursued Tamra, and all the other women before her? That day when he had come back to Tobol An he had seen Taja for what she was, and it seemed to him that since then he had seen everything clearly, without pretense. He had never before understood the court’s unconcern for others, their disregard for those who stood lower on the ladder. Taja had shown him more of the world in one season than he had learned in all his years in Etrara.
Finally the troupe left, and he was alone with her. They returned the chairs to the storeroom, Val’s room, saying nothing. When they had finished Taja said, “Mathary told me you would save Tobol An.”
“Did she?” he said, startled. “I wonder why.”
“Arion saved us, I think,” she said. “He turned the battle against Etrara, and drew the troops away from the village. That’s why the ghost-knight didn’t warn us about him. Because he was an enemy of Callia, and so were we. So he was our friend.”
He did not know what to say. He was unused to her bluntness, her openness about the royal family. No one from the court had mentioned Queen Callia once during their exile. How strange her manner was, after all, how different from the cloying subtleties of the court. How new it all was.
“Taja,” he said.
She turned to look at him, one of the mugs left by the company still in her hand.
“Did you get the sonnet I sent you?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Did you—did you like it?”
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