Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  A chill tightened Tharais’s shoulder blades, and she kissed the watching Geral again. She didn’t know that he’d seen that bleak expression again. He’d learned that it meant she was thinking of Marloven Hesea. Macael had once admitted seeing it, too.

  I’ve never gone over the mountains to visit my Marloven cousins, though Thar’s invited me, Macael had told Geral. But anything that could make her return to us so stiff and jumpy on her first days back in Enaeran is nothing I ever want to see. Especially as she never tells us why.

  Tharais broke into his thoughts. “I know I’ll marry a kingdom, Geral. And I know its size, and the principal families, and what you trade where. The tutor you sent taught me all that, too, while we practiced your tongue. And I speak it well, do I not?”

  “With the most charming accent.” Geral’s grin was merry, the first thing she had noticed about this otherwise unprepossessing fellow. Geral was her height, stocky, his thinning hair mouse brown. He’d been easily overlooked at the Enaeraneth court, except that Macael had liked him so much, joking with him until Geral’s quick wit drew her attention and slowly but surely, her admiration.

  His wit was not only quick but also kind. He liked everyone, he found everyone interesting, no matter what degree, and it was that aspect of him that had sharpened her admiration into attraction. That and the fact that his military knowledge was negligible—just enough to know who, in his kingdom, to talk to when it came to keeping peace.

  “Accent? Me?” she said, tweaking his ear. “I do not have an accent. It is all of you who do. Ther-r-ray-ezzz. I hear that, and think they are talking about someone else. And Van says it took him the better part of two days to figure out who ‘Yah-vandrath’ was.”

  At the mention of her brother’s name Geral pressed his lips together, then he looked away and said, “Why don’t we take a ride while the weather’s nice? You can show off your splendid horse, and I’ll show you the garden. I put in a plantation of fruit trees—”

  “Geral.” She stopped him with a hand flat against his chest. “My brother hasn’t… said anything or done anything to you, has he?”

  “Oh, no, of course not,” Geral said quickly. “He’s been most polite. To me, to everyone. He never makes demands, unlike some of those puppies Macael insisted on bringing. Life! My steward tells me she had to hire a dozen extra day-servants, just because of those fellows’ constant demands. You’d think they were the heirs to gigantic kingdoms and not—”

  “Geral.” She pulled him outside into the lovely sea breeze. She sniffed the enticing salt air. As long as she didn’t have to be on the water, she could get used to this proximity to the Sartoran Sea.

  They walked down the broad, shallow stairs, past the new wing that Geral’s father had begun and then abandoned, and that Geral was hoping to begin again. When they were on the pathway between the flowerbeds, where she could see if anyone approached, she said, “Something’s wrong, and it has to do with my brother. It would be better if I knew.”

  “But he hasn’t done anything wrong—at least, not to any of us. Not that I have a right to comment on.”

  “Oh.” She winced. “Don’t tell me someone’s been spying on their drill.”

  Geral’s cheery face suffused with color. “Yes. That would be me,” he admitted.

  “What happened?”

  The young king sighed. “You have to realize that news of what you did up on the Fal River reached us long before you rode in. I mean, for well over a year there’s been rumors about that rascal Denlieff, who calls himself the new King of Lamanca, and how conveniently certain lawless types vanish into his kingdom. I’d heard of Dandy Glamac—bad, horribly bad. No one even tried to stop him. But you and your brother, with a handful of boys and girls, put them out like a doused fire.” He paused, looking unhappy.

  “Go on.”

  “So when you arrived, of course, people toasted you and all that, and when your brother asked for a garrison court, a private one, so he could exercise his fellows, I had to agree. And I made sure that no one has any business along that wall, though there aren’t any windows. There are peepholes, though.” Now he looked guilty.

  Tharais snorted a laugh. “Our castle is riddled with ‘em. Go on.”

  “My great-aunt showed me that peephole when I was little. Never mind why—the reason no longer exists. Main thing is, I had heard all that, and I couldn’t help going to watch them drilling to see if rumor had made a tree out of a twig, as it usually does.”

  “Not always,” she said in a grim voice.

  He searched her face, saw that she was not angry with him, and said, “Well, and so I watched. And they are good. So good that I couldn’t even tell you what it is they do, except swing lances until they hum, and throw one another using what seems to be a thumb and a knee, and ride like they were stuck to the horse’s back. I couldn’t see the least error, but they sure could, because at the end, your brother called two of them out, and whipped them himself. He didn’t use a stick, the way the tutors did in my grandfather’s day. He used a short leddas whip, and the boys stood still for it, then went to the ensorcelled bucket to wipe the blood off. Then they put their shirts back on and went right back to work, though I saw one of them faint not long after. I hope he didn’t get beaten for that.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Tharais said. “There is a limit even to their—oh, call it methods. Or so I understand. No one is permitted to see what happens at the Academy. No one. But I know this: to stay in the Academy—to work for the chance to be chosen for the First Lancers—they will do anything. And so the last finished in any drill gets beaten, and he who makes an error also. Even my brother. Especially my brother, until he learned to never be last. And to never make mistakes.”

  “But someone has to be last, right? Stands to reason!”

  “The ideal is they all finish together. Without error.”

  Geral leaned toward her and whispered, “But I think some of them are women.”

  Tharais couldn’t help a laugh, but she turned it into a hiccough. “Three.”

  “Women,” he repeated. “And they get the… beatings?”

  “If they aren’t fast enough,” she said. She added, as he turned his head aside, “They don’t take off their shirts, but everything else is the same. Geral, they choose to train. The competition is terribly strict, but it’s an honor. They have to be as strong as the fellows. Which is probably why you couldn’t tell the difference at casual glance.” And when he continued to look troubled she added, “This is why I don’t talk much about my home. It’s different, there. You don’t know what life there is like. Please don’t judge.”

  Geral pleated his fingers, looking very like a guilty young boy. “I won’t. But I wish I hadn’t seen your brother do that.”

  “Since you have,” Tharais said, “it makes it a whole lot easier to ask a question that my aunt and I have been mulling over for a year now. And you were the one I hoped to put it to, if I could find a way.”

  Geral looked hopeful.

  “You have to understand that I love my brother,” Tharais said, as they skirted a pond in which silvery fish leapt and splashed. Frogs sang a pleasantly lugubrious note. Oh, she would adore living here! But. “He’s always been good to me. No matter what his summers were like, he always was the first to greet me when I came home for my winter visits, and always had a surprise for me. And rough as his friends were, he never let them tease or bully me. With me he was…” She looked away, “He was… at his best with me, you see, which is what leads me to my question. Is there a smart, strong princess you know of looking out for marriage? You’ve traveled all over this end of the continent, you must know someone who isn’t already taken.”

  “It has to be a princess?” Geral raised his brows.

  She sighed. “Van has to have the best, because he’s had to be the best at home. Think of what you saw, then imagine it far worse. Many times worse. He has to have an equal, and the one woman who would have done—” She paused, t
hinking of tall, strong, hard-riding Tdiran Marlovair, but shied from that last terrible memory. “Well, it didn’t work out.”

  “I don’t think any princess would work out, not if he has to have a tall, strong, hard-riding one with anything like those skills,” Geral said, guessing at least at some of what his beloved did not tell him. “No one I know rides like you people—boys or girls, royal or warrior. And I am willing to wager anything you care to name that no princess I’ve ever met has broken the Compact and drawn a bow. Though there are a couple of east coast girls who are rather good with the rapier,” he amended. “But then, life is different there, you might say, because of the unending problems with pirates. However, one of them is married, and the other—” He grinned. “—won’t have anything to do with boys.”

  Tharais sighed, and because she looked so unhappy, he said impulsively, “I have an idea. Let’s ride.”

  A stable girl came running out, but Geral sent her away, and the two of them saddled their own mounts, Tharais quicker than any ostler.

  While she performed a chore she’d been doing since she was six years old, she thought happily about her own life stretching ahead. The pretty Nelkereths she’d brought could be bred to the king’s stud, and she would introduce riding games to a young court that seemed to be looking for entertainment. As soon as she could, she’d get rid of those ridiculous bell-shaped gowns (who could possibly ride in those?) and introduce riding fashions, only in fine fabrics so the daughters of counts and barons would think themselves smart.

  So she was still smiling, though pensive, as they trotted out on the bridle path. At last he said, “Maybe what he needs is a different kind of princess altogether.”

  “What kind?”

  “Well, I heard not a day before you arrived that the Queen of Colend has an heir at last. And that puts Princess Lasthavais out of inheritance. Which means Colend’ll be looking about for some dynastic marriage, though no kingdom on this continent is as strong or rich as Colend—unless it be Sartor, and there are debates on that.”

  “Tell me about this princess. There were rumors in Shiovhan that she is beautiful, but that’s what everyone says about princesses, unless they are awful, or interesting.”

  “You have a branch of the Dei family living at your end of the world, don’t you?” Geral asked.

  “Not any more. They left the south when the civil war broke out and my great grandfather took the throne. But there’s a portrait in my aunt’s rooms of Joret Dei, who married into the Elsarions, and I’ve seen sketches of Lasthavais Dei the Wanderer, or Sky Child as some call her. Oh. Has she got those looks?”

  “Yes.”

  Tharais grimaced. “But if she’s stupid or a stinkweed it wouldn’t work. Beautiful girls are usually stinkweeds,” she added, thinking of the two reigning court beauties in Enaeran.

  “Recent whispers give her a reputation for being frivolous and heartless, but when I was at the Colendi court, I never found her so,” Geral said. “Though she’s several years younger, she was as kind to me as if I’d been the King of Sartor, instead of a visiting prince from a tiny, outlying land no one could be the least interested in. And though you could forgive a girl of sixteen for being rude to a fellow who is ugly as mud, and has a personality to match, she was even kind to that glowering Chwahir prince—who was about as ill-favored a fellow as you’d never want to see.”

  Tharais gave a sudden yip that caused Geral’s horse to sidle, tossing its head. “Sounds better and better! We need someone at home who’s strong and smart. And if she were beautiful, too, why so much the better.”

  “Well, the rep for heartlessness is very recent, so maybe she’s changed. One thing for certain, half that court is reputed to be in love with her. Won’t your brother’s—” He hesitated, but briefly. “Won’t it make things worse if he went courting her and, well, it didn’t take?”

  Tharais looked thoughtful. “Who says he has to court her?”

  “There they go!”

  A morning storm had been too brief to muddy up the fields to the east of Geral’s palace, Athanarel; it had been enough to cool the air. Some even felt the promise of autumn in the cool breeze.

  Horses thundered down the track, and again Tharais was first, the ribbon streaming behind her until she slowed, laughing as she gathered it up. Young Remalnan nobles cheered, many of them with an eye to their king. Geral grinned with pride.

  Tharais shook her head when the call went out for the next horse race. She’d let two of Geral’s friends ride a pair of her horses, as everyone agreed the pretty horses from Marloven Hesea were, despite their dainty heads, much faster than any others. But it was clear that you needed to know how to ride a fast horse. She’d won two races (the second so the first wouldn’t seem a fluke) and then refused to run any more, though she gave those who wished it permission to ride her mounts, as long as they exhibited light hands.

  Geral deeply appreciated his queen-to-be exchanging cheerful comments with the people gathered along the grassy ridge on their blankets and quilts. Two races was exactly right. Had she kept racing and winning, it was only human nature that admiration might turn to resentment.

  “That was fun!” She sat down beside Geral, but as was her habit, sought her brother to assess his mood. Of course he wouldn’t race against the Remalnans, but he seemed to like watching her ride—the pride of the teacher.

  Ivandred turned up his palm. “Mare looks good.”

  There followed a detailed exchange about the demands of training versus breeding, while the last couple of races were run.

  Those who had made wagers completed their exchanges, most of them being for tokens: a scarf, a pin, a ring. Then the spectators dispersed, town folk to the streets, palace folk inside to change for dinner.

  Much later Macael joined them and the four gathered in Geral’s personal rooms. Talk ran generally on races, roads, and traveling, and at last Tharais signaled Macael with her eyes, and he said, stretching, “I smelled autumn on the air today. Maybe it’s time to ride on.”

  Ivandred looked over, brows lifted in question. “On?”

  Macael said, “Well, what’s waiting at home? A soggy month of rain shut up with the same people.”

  “Passes west close up with snow by Tenthmonth,” Ivandred reminded him.

  Macael spread his hands. “And so? What’s to do at home in winter that you can’t put off for a year?”

  Ivandred looked down at his hands, considering the academy, his father, his magic lessons. What his father’s mage, Sigradir Andaun, had said. Get some experience of the world outside our borders, Ivandred. Getting away will do well for you and your father. And the Herskalt who taught him magic had smiled, saying, There is always magic transfer, reminding him that he could not only get home fast from anywhere in the world, but he could also be found.

  A summer away meant he would miss Tdiran Marlovair’s wedding. He looked up.

  Macael leaned forward. “Wouldn’t it be more fun to go take a look at the most beautiful woman in the world?”

  Ivandred looked surprised. “Who’s that?”

  “According to rumor, Lasthavais of Colend.” Macael kissed his fingertips and flicked them out in salute. “Newly supplanted. Her old toad of a sister finally had an heir. Colend always marries off the royal siblings. That’s how they gained control of half the east, you know.”

  Ivandred snorted. “Colend. Beauty. She’ll have every prince on the continent at her feet.”

  Macael shrugged. “Of course. And her sister’ll see she picks the richest or most powerful, but we’re not looking to marry her, are we? Women are going to flock to Colend to try their hand at prince-nabbing. I say we join the merry throng, test the truth of rumor, and have ourselves a dalliance or two. Maybe add a wager to the fun.”

  “Wager?”

  “If one of us can get this princess to kiss him.”

  Ivandred laughed. “You know how to talk to women of that sort. I don’t.”

  “But you ride w
ell. Females like that.” On Ivandred’s snort of disbelief, he leaned forward again. “Admit it. You’d love to give these sniff-nosed Sartor-trained snobs the back of your hand. Just think how they’d chew their pretty silks if you won a kiss.”

  “What language do they speak?” Ivandred asked.

  “Kifelian. Colend was once a collection of Sartoran provinces. Their language is similar to Sartoran, but with a whole lot more words adopted from other languages. The best poems, supposedly, are in Kifelian, if you like that sort of thing. We can practice it on the ride north. We can even join with their court if we ride out soon—they’re taking barges back from the Sartoran music festival. We’ll learn their fashions and the language of ribbons.”

  “Language of ribbons?” Tharais asked.

  “Colendi men don’t wear ribbons on clothing any more, just in their hair,” Geral told her. “What color you wear, and how you wear it, signifies your status in rank and romance.”

  Macael dropped his head into his hands. “All my pretty ribbons,” he moaned. “Though if I get to keep ribbons for romance, I think I can live with that. What color ribbon signifies ‘will dally with any beautiful woman’?”

  “If you are free,” Geral said, “you tie back this part of your hair.” He grabbed the back of his own. “And let everything forward of your ears free in what they call lovelocks.”

  “Lovelocks,” Macael repeated. “They weren’t wearing those when I was there. Everyone’s hair was dyed silver, and they wore it loose. No, the women had just begun to wear long ribbons in it, hanging down to their heels.”

  “You’re obviously not up to date,” Tharais said, dismissing Macael with a playful wave of her hand. “Go on.” She grinned at Geral, who grinned back and continued: “Colend’s court changes their clothes as often as their bells ring the hours. Anyway, if you pair off with someone exclusively, then you choose a color and both wear it in your hair, and fellows bind back their lovelocks. If a pair is exclusive, they both wear white.”