When the King Comes Home

by Caroline Stevermer

  Istvan swept us with him, swept us on. We had slain Dalet, Red Ned’s necromancer, but we did not exult in our victory. We rode hard in desperate silence, as if we were fleeing trouble instead of riding toward safety, if one could find any in a remnant of a battered army.

  I cried a little, sniveling to myself as I jolted along. No one noticed. After my eyes grew sticky and my nose stopped up, my sobs trailed away. What was there to cry over, after all? An ache or two and a trifling weariness? I was alive. Not buried in mud. Merely covered with it.

  NINETEEN

  (In which I keep vigil.)

  I expected, as much as I expected anything given how little I understood of what little Tig explained, that we would travel to where Ludovic and the others waited for us, and once there, we would stop. I was cheered by the thought of stopping, sustained by it. The dearest wish of my heart was to get off my horse, even if I had to fall off it like a sack of turnips, and land once more in the mud. We did not stop, just as Ludovic and his men had not been waiting for us. They had been on the move, and we continued our travels as we met, merged, and formed a larger group.

  I looked up from the pommel of my saddle and realized Ludovic was riding beside me. I blinked at him, and said as clearly as I could, “Where are we?”

  “Nearly to the Folliard Bridge. We’ve got to beat them there, or they’ll cross the river before us.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s going to be close. We’ve had to fight as we run. Fortunately Istvan’s with us now, and none of the troops we cross paths with want to risk engaging him. Lucky for us. There are so many sides fighting now, it’s hard to tell who is for us and who is against us.”

  “Oh.” Ludovic took pity on me. “The king is dead.” I thought of Julian as I’d seen him last, dressed in battle gear, a puppet in Dalet’s keeping. My thoughts must have shown in my face, despite the mud.

  “No,” Ludovic said, “The real king. Corin. That’s what we’re fighting over now. Red Ned has as much right as anyone to the throne now the king is finally dead and the prince-bishop has been killed.”

  “Julian’s not dead?”

  “No. Though for all I know, he can’t die, any more than Istvan can.”

  Ludovic rode beside me in silence until a signal came from the vanguard that he was needed. Before he spurred ahead, he said, “Don’t look so tragic. We won’t keep this pace much longer. We’ll have to stop soon.” At my look of piteous gratitude, all he did was smile and add, “To rest the horses.”

  We did stop eventually, and Ludovic spoke true, it was to rest the horses. Once they were watered, we climbed a grassy ridge and let them graze, unsaddled, in a picket line along the shoulder of the hill. Sentinels kept watch. The countryside stretched out below us seemed empty, nearly peaceful.

  While I lay staring up into the sky, head pillowed on my saddle, wondering if I would live out the day, Tig joined me. “They want to see you.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “They want to talk to you.”

  “Send them over.”

  “You’re to come with me.”

  I made a noise. It wasn’t very rude, because I couldn’t spare much a energy to put into it, but it got the idea across.

  “I’ll give them the message.”

  When Tig left me alone, I looked at the sky again. We were halfway through a fine day. There were large white clouds sailing across the blue, the puffy kind shaped like beehives. Back home in Neven, they a say bees come from Paradise. If you are a very good person, when you die, the bees come to take your soul with them to Paradise, so you can’t get lost. I wondered if I would be a good enough person, by the time I died, for the bees to bother about. I didn’t think so. In truth, the thought of more traveling, even to Paradise, made me feel tired. So I closed my eyes and let the clouds sail on without me.

  The horses must have been given an unusually long rest, for the sun was well down the sky by the time Tig woke me. “Captain says you’re, to drink this.” He handed over a small unstoppered flask.

  I sat up and sniffed at it warily. Whiskey. Good whiskey. I drained the flask and handed it back. “Thanks. Now how about helping me up?”

  Leverage is a marvelous thing. I made it. In the process I noticed that Tig’s face was still marked by his sleep. Faint on the skin was the imprint left by the fold of his sleeve where he’d rested cheek on arm. “Got some rest yourself, I see.” He rubbed his face briskly when he realized what I meant. I tried to brush some of the debris off my clothing but gave up. The mud was dry now. As I moved, the stiffened fabric made a faint sound, not a rustle, yet not quite a scrape either. I picked up the crown in its dirty cloth and tucked it under my arm.

  Ludovic said, “Finally,” when I joined him. He was with Istvan, and while I’d been asleep others must have joined us, for there were many more in our party than I remembered. One of the men stood at Ludovic’s elbow, staring at me. It took me a long affronted moment to realize that the man was Rigo, dressed most soldierly and nearly as muddy as I.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “You have the crown?” Rigo held out his hands impatiently.

  I looked at him with wonderment. Weary he was, clearly. Disturbed by matters I could not hope to comprehend. Yet no greeting? No acknowledgment at all? “Tig must have told you already.”

  “He did. Give it here.”

  I marveled, seeing that urgency, that they hadn’t taken it from me while I slept. Yet perhaps they couldn’t. Perhaps there was more to Tig’s wild talk of bad luck than I knew. “What do you want it for?”

  “To free the king, of course. There’s no time to explain fully.”

  “Look, I made it. Right? And I took it back from Dalet when Tig wouldn’t touch it. If we are in such a hurry, why didn’t you just take it?”

  Visibly strained by the patience he forced into his voice and expression, Rigo said, “It must be given freely.”

  “I didn’t exactly get it that way. Will that make a difference? What are you going to do?”

  “Dalet used trinkets to bind Julian to her will. Her will is no more. Still, Julian is linked to her.”

  “What will you do with the crown if I give it up? How can you loose a bond Dalet forged?”

  “First we must free Julian from Edward of Ardres. Using the bond, I shall call Julian to us.”

  I looked around. “Who is us?”

  “We are,” said Ludovic, as if I were deaf. I nearly was deafened, the way he said it.

  “Are we going to be enough to fight off Red Ned? He isn’t just going to let Julian leave.”

  Istvan said, “We’re enough.”

  I waited for Rigo to say something, and when he didn’t, I prompted him. “What will you do when Julian is safe? Will you recast the crown again?”

  Rigo shook his head. “We’ll get him back first, and then we’ll see.”

  “Will we?” I turned to Istvan. If anyone held Julian’s welfare more dearly than his own, it was Istvan. “You believe them?”

  “I believe that we must free Julian from Red Ned. We have the high ground here. We can do it.”

  For the first time I realized that our hill commanded the rolling landscape in every direction. We were not very high, but we were most excellently strategic.

  “And then? When Julian is free of Red Ned, will he be free of Dalet? Of Ludovic? Of any of us?”

  “If he were free of everyone but me, I would be well content,” said Istvan. “Courage, child. Give Rigo your crown.”

  I obeyed.

  On a sunlit afternoon, with no artifice, and only his own skill and my handiwork to aid him, Rigo set to work crafting his enchantment. We stood in a ring around him, as silent and as motionless as we could manage, while he cast his spell in place of Dalet’s. The sun moved down the sky and our shadows had grown long before Rigo finished. When he did, there was a space of pure stillness, filled only by the sound of the breeze in the high grass. Then Tig pointed, and we all turned to look. Riders on the
horizon.

  “Here they come,” said Istvan, and he smiled.

  There weren’t very many of them. They weren’t trying to restrain the king. They rode with him, it seemed, and when he lifted a hand and drew rein, they drew rein with him.

  I could feel the tenor of Rigo’s spell alter and intensify. He used Dalet’s magic to beckon Julian. “But he’s coming,” I found myself protesting. “He’s right there. We can just give him the crown. You needn’t make him come kneel at your feet.” I looked hard at Riga. The spell was clear to me now, the nature of the call he used. I could read the intention as I had felt the urgency in the recruiting spell.

  No mere urging, this. Rigo compelled Julian to come, summoned him with the coronet I’d made to help free him from Dalet’s sway. The act of creation had altered something inside me so that I could understand the use to which Rigo put it.

  In the name of every good cause ever thought of, Rigo was using my work to force the king to join us. I’d made it, and Rigo had turned it over to the prince-bishop, for the help of his army. Dalet took it from the prince-bishop, added it to her magpie collection of jewelry and talismans, and used it to increase her own power. Used my work.

  I’d taken it back from Dalet and rendered it up to Rigo willingly, and here he was, summoning Julian back to some fresh bondage. “That’s not what it’s for,” I said. “It’s supposed to free him.”

  Rigo ignored me, but Ludovic answered. “Free him from what? From life? It can’t be done. Dalet improved on her spell after Istvan. Istvan can be distracted by the damage when he’s hurt, even if he can’t die. But Julian is invulnerable. Nothing hurts him. He can’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands. The wit of Ulysses and the strength of Achilles, with more wisdom than Zeus himself. He’s our true king.”

  I regarded Ludovic with wonder. “But Julian is real. And they don’t look much like enemies right now.” The men with the king had made a protective little knot at his heels and were eying us nervously. “Are you worried that Red Ned will come and catch us all?”

  “That would be worth a few worries,” Ludovic admitted, “but all reports suggest he’s headed toward Aravis instead.”

  “Why are we here, then? Why aren’t we on our way to Aravis?”

  “The city can defend itself. We need the king. Whoever has Julian, the empire will follow.”

  “Whoever has Aravis, the empire will follow. Aravis is the empire,” I said.

  “Aravis will keep. First we need Julian.”

  “He’s right there. Give him the crown yourself.”

  “He must come to us.”

  “He isn’t coming any closer.” If Julian could feel the spell as I could, I didn’t blame him. It pounded behind my eyes like a headache. Whatever Rigo’s spell had started out to be, it had dwindled to this simple monotonous call.

  “Give it time.”

  I realized Istvan was at my side. He was not pleased. “Enough.” He put out his hand to Rigo, but the spell kept him off. “Stop it.”

  With deep indignation, I realized he was talking to me. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Stop it.”

  This time I understood him. I reached for Rigo, and there was nothing to prevent me. I took the crown away from him as if it were a toy. “This isn’t yours,” I reminded him. As I stepped back, the cessation of the spell was wonderful, silence after long senseless noise.

  Istvan drew me back, slipped between me and their protests. “Saddle two horses,” he told me.

  I put my hand through the crown, ran it up my arm to hold it securely. When I turned, Tig was there, three horses saddled.

  “I’m going with you.”

  I smiled at him “Ludovic won’t like that.”

  “No.”

  Istvan backed toward us. Tig put me in the saddle and held Istvan’s horse while he mounted. He was on his own horse before Ludovic had finished countering his old orders.

  Rigo was standing, empty-handed, in the dwindling circle of his spell. I could feel the remnants of it dissipating, through the fading tingle on my arm. He lifted his hands as I looked back. I blinked at the open joy in his expression. No anger there, only joy at the end of that monotonous call. I had freed someone already, it seemed.

  I lifted my hand to bid him farewell and felt the weight of the crown shift against me. Arm crooked and held carefully to my side, I rode with Tig and Istvan to join Julian.

  Julian’s men obeyed him and let us through. “They’re coming,” Istvan warned, as we joined Julian. “We should go.”

  “We should.” Julian held out his hands to accept the coronet from me. There was no ceremony in it. The weight of the crown seemed to hold a living warmth, as if it went eagerly to its owner. Julian set it on his own head and something eased as he straightened in his saddle.

  This close, I could see that Ludovic had been wrong. Julian was not invulnerable. The harm he’d taken on his way to this moment was not physical, though his battered clothes and gear told of a considerable struggle. But in his eyes was old pain as well as fresh, and I knew that whatever Dalet had done with her spell, the price of his physical safety was exacted in less tangible ways.

  “Time to go,” said Julian.

  Istvan nodded. The pair of them ignored the rest of us, and when they rode, we followed without orders, Tig and I at their heels and the ragtag band of men accompanying the king after us. After us came Ludovic and his men, I assumed. We made a brave procession. I wondered, as we turned north of east, away from the direction of Aravis, where on earth we were going.

  We rode the sun down, and by dusk we’d reached the Folliard Bridge. The river held the day longer than the hills around us did, and its surface gave back the light of the autumn sky. Istvan led us down to the water, drew rein, and dismounted. “Here,” he said, and dropped to sit cross-legged near the spot where I had found him first. “Just here.”

  Julian joined him. The rest of us drew back. Even back with the others, I could feel the stirring of expectation, see it in the way they sat. They were waiting.

  “Getting dark. Best see to the horses.” There was nothing else to do. I helped Tig and the others as we settled in for the night. In the camp we made there was firelight and soft conversation, even laughter. In the darkness beside the river, there was only silence as Istvan and Julian kept their vigil.

  In time the moon rose, saffron pale, not far past the full. The shadows deepened.

  If Ludovic, Rigo, and the rest had started after us, they had not come so far. We were a little knot of travelers, alone between the river and our picket lines, clustered by our fire, waiting for the light.

  I did as Tig did, and kept my back to the fire. It was easy to look out into the night, to keep my night vision clear, as easy as ignoring the soft murmurs of someone else’s conversation. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to listen. I wanted to fix the scene in my memory, beyond all chance of misremembrance. Just so, the moon on the water. Just so, the darkness and deeper darkness beneath the arches of the bridge.

  This was how I would paint Julian crowned. Not the way I’d handed the crown across to him, as prosaic as passing a ginger biscuit. A nightscape, with only the light of the moon to show the scene. A few men at arms, not spruce warriors, but real soldiers, well battered by the work they’d done on the king’s behalf, holding torches. Perhaps someone would hold a candle, shielding the flame from the breeze with his hand. I could see exactly how I’d paint that hand, with the candle’s flame not shown, yet the light burning at the edges of his hand, his frayed cuff, illuminating the wonder in his face as he watched the crowning of the true king.

  Istvan would crown him, I decided. No, better that he should offer the crown, let Julian crown himself as he had done. The truth, above all.

  Time seemed to withdraw. Stars rolled their slow way west, and the moon walked among them. We were waiting for Istvan and Julian, and they were waiting for something we could not guess.

  I blinked into the darkness and s
pun myself promises of the picture I would paint. It would be a fit companion piece for Miriamne’s adoration. My masterpiece. Mine.

  There were stars in the water. I realized the moon had gone. Set already? No light in the east to hint at morning coming. Our little fire had burned past embers to ash. There were only stars, filling the sky above us, reflected in the water before us.

  I never saw such stars. Never so many, never so large, with the Milky Way spanning the vault over us like another river, a remnant of light that required true darkness to appreciate. More and yet more, the longer I looked. It came to me that I was seeing many more stars reflected in the river.

  The river was rising. There was the edge, where the reflected sky gave way to perfect darkness, hardly eight feet from where I sat. Where the water’s edge had been, water moved, the silent river coming to meet the trees behind us.

  I could still see Istvan and Julian, standing now. They were side by side, knee-deep in the water. Only the coronet the king wore gave back the starlight. All the rest was shadow.

  I saw the gleam of the crown change as Julian turned his head. He had glanced at us, huddled in wondering silence on the shore. But then, as I stared, eyes burning to see better, he went back to gazing upstream. Waiting.

  I looked north. I could, if I dared, find a better point of vantage from the bridge. But I dared not walk on that span, not that night. What Julian and Istvan could wait to see, I would abide.

  Perfect silence in the night, even the sounds of the river hushed for the occasion. I could smell autumn: dried grass, the woods behind us, the lingering tang of the wood smoke from our fire, and mud. The chill of the night lay on my skin, burning the tip of my nose and my fingers’ ends with cold, the way I’d imagined my painted candle flame would edge that hand with light.

  The breeze picked up. It was out of the north, and with it came the sound of leaves rustling, as if a forest came down to us, unseen. I could smell the wind. I could nearly taste it.

  With that sound and that scent as herald, the little ship sailed from beneath the central arch of the Folliard Bridge. It had a sail that gave back the starlight, pale, but no color to it, and as we watched, the set of the sail changed, and the ship angled toward us.