Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  “We’ll be on our way.”

  Ivandred lifted a hand, and it seemed to the watchers that a heartbeat later his entire force was in flight toward the bridge out of town.

  Once the animals had had a good run, the columns slowed to a walk. Ivandred motioned Haldren Marlovair to him. Their horses gave one another a sniff and a flick of ears.

  “Did you hear yon innkeep?” Ivandred asked, chin motioning over his shoulder.

  “Royal roads.” Haldren’s countenance expressed his question.

  They studied the road, which was broad and so well paved no grass grew between the joins of the sandstone. Yet it curved about lazily, with no attention to the straight line, the fastest route.

  “These can’t be military roads,” Ivandred said. “They either keep those to themselves, or—”

  It was inconceivable that there weren’t any military roads. But this kingdom was already so unlike Marloven Hesea. Observe these Colendi houses. Rich or poor, they had big windows, even door-windows that opened right onto gardens, for summer living. How can you defend any house with all those windows and no perimeter walls, only gardens? You couldn’t.

  Hard to believe they shared the same world, Haldren thought, looking from a pretty farmhouse to the royal road sweeping around a lake, swooping south into a shallow valley, then northward to skirt the forested side of a hill.

  “Maybe they don’t have any military roads,” Haldren observed.

  Ivandred gestured, palm to the sky. “We’ll find a likely campsite, and I’ll hail my cousin tonight.”

  Haldren dropped back to the rear of the column, and they rode on until they made camp beside a stream.

  The sun had set when Ivandred exchanged his dusty coat for a clean one, resettled his belt and his weapons, then walked a little ways away from his warriors, shut his eyes, and muttered the transfer spell. Heat built rapidly. The inward wrench was thoroughly nasty, but when the sensation passed there was Macael, sitting at a private table, watching him with a bemused expression.

  Macael had felt a brief sense of impending lightning, then there was his cousin. Curtains fluttered and candle flames glowed bright in the burnt-smelling air he stirred up.

  Ivandred sank into a convenient chair, wiping the sweat from his brow. Transferring like that left him dangerously weak for too long, but he didn’t have transfer tokens and did not know how to make them.

  “I take it there’s some reason you couldn’t write me a note,” Macael said, pulling his notebox from his inner pocket.

  Ivandred made a repudiating gesture. The Herskalt had taught him how easy it was to suborn those message boxes. He knew how many had died because messages had been waylaid by magic, without writer or recipient knowing. All for the good of the kingdom, that’s what my ancestors say.

  “Very well.” Macael sighed. Then gave his cousin a speculative glance. “You transferred here without a token,” he observed.

  Ivandred turned his palm up in assent, then frowned down at the tiny lapidary wine cups, which held little more than a sip. How strange it was that these Colendi seemed to prefer dishes that would better befit a doll.

  He helped himself to wine right out of the bottle, as Macael went on: “Pardon me if I’m wrong. I know almost nothing about magic, short of what the traveling mages tell us when they come through once a year and renew all our spells. But isn’t a transfer without token dark magic?”

  Ivandred hid his impatience. “This ‘light’ and ‘dark’ distinction is nothing but moral posturing,” he said. “Why not blue and orange?” The Herskalt had explained all that to him when he first began tutoring.

  Macael toyed with his wine cup. “I thought dark magic was dangerous. Mages avoid it, except… eh.”

  Ivandred made a flat-handed gesture. “If I have to use any magic outside of the transfers necessary for this journey, it will be an emergency. I have to be fast. I assumed it would be all right to fix on you as a transfer destination.”

  “You’re welcome to fix on me. It’s well, though, that you didn’t two nights ago at this time.” He grinned ruefully, as Ivandred looked surprised, then snorted a laugh. “I didn’t consider that. And should have. Sorry.”

  Macael waved. “So. Something has happened, I take it? Where are you, anyway? Er, where did you come from?”

  “Near the Alessandra River. East of a town called, ah, Benind? Bin-nam. They don’t have maps or garrisons. Only this royal road that seems to wander up and down the countryside.” Ivandred gestured with his palm down, as though pushing aside the royal roads. “Everywhere we go, we hear about rumors of trouble. They hum, they point toward the distant mountains. Does this mean imminent war with the Chwahir?”

  “Nobody has the faintest idea,” Macael said. “The word from Alsais is just as vague. ‘Trouble’ about sums it up. Then they conjecture, based on stories of wars that are centuries old.” He grinned.

  Ivandred gave a short nod. “Talk of war, this I understand. I will send Haldren ahead at the gallop.”

  He muttered and vanished by magic, leaving the candle flames flickering and streaming wildly.

  Emras:

  I thought you might like a report on what has happened since you sent me the scroll. I think I told you, if you want everyone eager to read something, you must catch the toffs first. They won’t read anything the tradesmen discovered, no matter how popular. So I waited until I had the right person, the Duchess of Altan, who stayed in Alsais this summer—the chirp-birds insist that she and the Duke are leading the rest of the coronets in some campaign to force the queen to rescind some tax. The duchess wanted something unrelated to music. Then came these rumors about the Chwahir, and possible war, and that was my chance!

  You will love the design. I found an old-fashioned style of paper, ink, and for illustrations, I looked up all the old family sigils of those early days. And as the battles were mostly about the Venn, what could be better than Venn styles?

  I skimmed through Tiflis’s description of the book—“book,” not “scroll,” as books were enjoying popularity over scrolls, though they were harder to make. After the Duchess sat for two hours in one of the reading chairs, then insisted on buying that very copy, Tif detailed triumphantly how her employer not only took the risk of putting all the copyists in the house to the job, she also paid for a night crew. They sold every copy within two days, and she had just seen the list of all those waiting for new copies.

  … everyone at the palace says that the stay-at-home toffs are smirking about the toffs still on the road, who don’t know of this latest sensation. And it is a sensation! Is it true that one of these Marlovens is coming east with an army of hundreds?

  In the Grand Seneschal’s formal audience chamber, the Grand Herald and two ducal heralds were locked in a bitter war of wills between the queen and her two strongest dukes: while everyone agreed that the Oath stipulated that each ducal territory send two hundred warriors, the ducal alliance was determined to make the queen pay their expenses, and Davaud and the Grand Herald were determined that the dukes were to cover supplies as well as furnishing bodies.

  The Oath was so old that its exact meaning had become obscured enough for a variety of interpretations.

  This war was conducted by the Grand Herald (with Lord Davaud present), his attackers the ducal heralds, their weapons a formidable mass of historic detail, delivered in the blandest of voices accompanied by formal manners.

  “… and my lord duke requests that I furnish this copy from the Altan archives,” the first herald was saying to the Grand Herald, his face smooth and innocent as he bowed, then proffered a paper written in the court hand of two hundred years ago. “In it, his grace begs you to honor with your attention, you will find the marriage treaty between Prince Gaelan Lirendi and Lady Phosar Altan on Firstday Sixmonth, 4191. Under the third head, please note that the Lirendi Family would henceforth provide all sums required in an Oath Summons for Defense, the Altans being held to the number of riders. It was agreed that sums
included the purchasing of equipment. His grace begs you will honor him with perusal of this statement here.”

  The Grand Herald pretended to look at the paper, but he already knew what it said. Two days ago he’d read the identical copy (duly noted and sealed by magic-seal) in the royal archive. It was now time to unleash his own weapon, discovered by one of his army of scribes, who had been searching both the royal archive and the general, night and day.

  “You must convey,” he said smoothly, his formality a degree more elaborate than the herald’s, “to his grace my infinite respect and duty, along with the following, which no doubt escaped his attention: ‘equipment’ was defined, by law under Emperor Mathias the Magnificent in 4258, as covering ‘war horse, saddle, sword, shield, armor and any appurtenances required thereto.’ The crown, therefore, sees its responsibility limited to fodder for mounts, and food for the warriors. Tents and clothing being considered ‘appurtenances.’”

  “If you will forgive a moment’s interpolation,” the herald from Endralath interposed with the bland smile of anticipatory triumph, “we might be able to clear up this matter with reference to the exact definition of ‘equipment,’ for in our own treaty with House Lirendi, in 4317—which you will all agree postdates the reign of the glorious Emperor Mathias—”

  The sound of horns startled them into silence—silver horns, blown with sweet and heart-racing precision in triple falls of notes. The unprecedented fanfare issued forth from directly outside the Grand Seneschal’s formal audience chamber.

  A young herald-apprentice ran in, wringing his hands as if shedding decorum. A door herald clattered behind him, tugging at ill-fitting armor painted in the garish styles popular two centuries previous. “Forgive me, sir,” this latter said, his eyes round with apprehension. “The Prince of Marloven Hesea rode right past the outer reception areas. They are here! They rode horses straight to the throne room doors!”

  “Who?”

  “Where?”

  “Marloven what?”

  Davaud slipped away and vaulted up the stairs. The Grand Seneschal, seeing him gone, motioned to a footman.

  In strode Haldren Marlovair and his second cousin Tdan Marthdaun. They were, on their prince’s orders, not dressed formally in their own House tunics but in their fighting blacks, with gold buckles to their belts, which transformed the whole into Montredaun-An black and gold. Their heads were bare, their pale hair neatly braided. In their left arms they carried their helms with the long hairs swinging down. In their right hands each bore a banner on a spear, Tdan the screaming eagle of Marloven Hesea, and Haldren the fox head, Ivandred’s personal banner.

  The heralds and the old Grand Seneschal stared at these newcomers in their martial coats, knives at their sides, in their high boot tops, and visible at their wrists. No one knew what to say.

  Haldren and Tdan found all those open mouths funny, but they were under orders to bear themselves as they would before the king, Ivandred’s father.

  “We bring greetings from Prince Ivandred of Marloven Hesea,” Tdan said, his back sword-straight.

  “—who requests an audience with the Princess Lasthavais Lirendi,” Haldren finished.

  “Most irregular,” a woman whispered from the row of heralds in the back, busily writing down the proceedings for the archive.

  Above, unknown to anyone but the Grand Herald and Grand Seneschal, the queen sat by a listening-post, its opening lost in the splendid carvings all around the ceiling of the interview chamber, as Davaud joined her, puffing for breath.

  The queen sent a page for Lasva as below, the Grand Herald sent a royal footman out to Ivandred, then hedged for time by asking once again for the young men’s names, that they might be correctly entered in the records.

  “So the suitors are showing up,” Hatahra said, as Lasva joined her and Davaud. “Kholaver of Bren has been prowling around impatiently, as I told you. Now I hear that Hathian of Sarendan is on his way. And here is the mysterious Marloven.”

  No reaction from her sister. Lasva seemed lost in reverie.

  Hatahra tried again. “Somehow I did not expect a royal suitor all the way from the barbarian west. And a descendant of Elgar the Fox, no less.”

  “Elgar the Fox,” Lasva repeated. The name made no sense at first, then she said doubtfully, “The pirate in history?”

  Hatahra leaned forward, her brows beetling. “So says the legend. But we will deal in facts. The single thing I know about the Marlovens is that one of their kings, perhaps an ancestor of this very prince, is the one whose threat to join the Enaeraneth caused our own ancestor, Mathias the Magnificent, to think better of bringing his empire of peace to that part of the world.”

  “You judge the Marlovens ill because of that?” Lasva asked, surprised.

  “I do not,” her sister rejoined crisply. “I would be a fool to hold against anyone a defense of their homeland. My point is this. This king—perhaps his ancestor—returned Mathias’s peace offering with a warning that Marlovens do not negotiate, though the Enaeraneth might. We have that exchange reported by a herald scribe, kept in the royal archive. I’ve seen it. However, it was centuries ago. Maybe they are more reasonable now.”

  When Lasva bowed, vouchsafing no answer, Hatahra said in a different voice, more speculative, “Did you meet this Marloven prince in Sartor?”

  And Hatahra saw it again: the catch of breath, the widening of pupils. Lasva, for once, was not aware of her outer response, which amazed Hatahra and Davaud.

  Lasva was only aware of the quickening of her heartbeat. “We did not meet to speak. I only glimpsed him once or twice on the river road,” she said.

  “Yet the city is suddenly talking about ancient pirates as if they’d sailed their ships up the Ym into town. It’s the illustrious history of this man’s country that is now the most popular thing. I understand The Slipper has abandoned their current slam at us to mount a new rendition of Jaja the Pirate Slayer. And I hear some of the younger girls are wearing a new fashion, shades of amber and maple in layered mantles on their gowns, called a fox ruff. Is this coincidence?”

  Lasva was genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know. That is, my scribe did mention something about a scroll, and Elgar the Fox. But that was before you summoned me home by magic transfer.” She did not have to add that that was nearly three weeks ago, and she’d been sequestered in her suite ever since.

  “This new fashion has sprung up in the city over the past five or six days. What was that about your scribe?” Hatahra asked, and at Lasva’s bewildered reaction, used her fan to dismiss the matter. “I have an idea.”

  She reached for the bell-pull that would summon a page, then paused. “Before I investigate further, let me ask you if yon Marloven prince is someone you wish to acknowledge formally as a suitor? If no one has met him, then we don’t know, after all, if he’s even less appealing than that young hum from Bren, whom we must tolerate if we’re to honor our treaties with his father. We have no treaties, no embassies, nothing, with these Marlovens. That gives us the freedom of response.”

  Lasva drew in a deep breath, and once again she was back at the riverside inn, weary, dreading another long night of joyless music—and looked straight into those startling winter-blue eyes. “What have you in mind?”

  Hatahra said, “To snap my fingers under Thias Altan’s nose. He’s the leader of the ducal faction, not Gaszin. They’re trying to get back at me for smashing the Gaszin marriage alliance with Alarcansa. Except for Thias, who’s pushing me because he can,” she added with a thin smile.

  Lasva flicked her fan over the lower part of her face in Surprise then flipped it, indicating the opposite.

  Hatahra flashed a grin. “If we were, as publicly as possible, to offer this martial Marloven a royal alliance and request him to aid us against the Chwahir, it might undercut Thias and his allies at a stroke. If the Marloven does, indeed, know something about military matters, Davaud could all but promise him the supreme command, and watch our dukes fume. Nothing t
hey can do, if half the servants they’re stuffing into old armor to fulfill their ancient obligations are still straggling this way with lagging steps, while the dukes try to force me to pay to equip an entire army.”

  Lasva smiled. Her thoughts veered from memory of that hapless King Jurac to Kaidas, then recoiled from Kaidas to Ivandred’s pale eyes. Attraction and mystery.

  If he agreed, they would meet. Speak. Would either mystery or attraction survive their first conversation?

  Her heart sped. “Do it, then.”

  THREE

  OF SILVER TRUMPETS

  W

  hen the bells rang the chords precisely one hour past noon—the Hour of the Wheel—the throne room doors opened, and Prince Ivandred Montredaun-An of Marloven Hesea walked alone down the center aisle. Over the last two days, whispers had spread through the palace faster than a fire. All of court and everyone else who could find an excuse to be there ranged on either side.

  Hatahra watched that straight, slender figure with the fearless pale gaze, the callused hands, the hard-heeled stride so unlike the sinuous cat-grace of her courtiers, and gloated inwardly at this challenge to her court.

  The young man came directly to the foot of her throne. He did not bow but stood with his booted feet slightly apart and struck his right fist against his heart.

  “Welcome to Colend, Prince Ivandred of Marloven Hesea,” she stated in the clear, steady cadence that made it easiest for the heralds up in the left-hand gallery to take down every word spoken. “You are welcome as friend and as an ally to be trusted in time of need.”

  Again he struck his fist against his heart, a gesture she found strange and intimidating, then he cooperatively spoke the single line she, Davaud, and the Chief Herald had wrangled over all night:

  “You have only to state your need, and I will prove that trust.”

  He said it clearly in that clipped accent. What did the words mean to him?