Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

“I love you,” I said. “I think. I’m pretty sure. I just don’t want physical love.”

  Birdy sat there, eyes averted, hands loose. Then he turned back. “I don’t know what I feel,” he admitted. “I think I grew up wanting you, before I even knew what want was. I don’t know if I can love without…” He opened his hands. “Without all of it.”

  “What about Anhar?”

  “What about her? She knows how I feel.” He ran his fingers back and forth along the edge of a table, as if he must touch something. “I know how she feels. We started with homesickness. Though she was glad to leave.” He looked away, as if reluctant to reveal things told him in intimate moments. Then he continued softly, “We both missed Colend in unexpected ways. Every time I ride out…” He was barely audible over the rise and fall of a ballad that someone in another room was singing, punctuated by laughter and the tap of drums. “… I see the same pale sun riding low in the north, and it throws me back to riding when I was a boy.”

  “Riding?” I asked.

  “I first saw the moon ride the horizon when my mother put me on a horse. When I think back to my visits home I see bare hawthorn and smell the evergreen on the cold air. I hear the ice, like broken glass, no, like crystal wind chimes, running in the streams.” His voice was slow, and dreamlike.

  “Tell me about your mother,” I said. “I know nothing about your family. You remember, how we were not to speak of such things at scribe school, so that those whose families were not traditionally scribes would not feel left out.”

  Surprise twitched through him. “And you obeyed? Ah-ye, most of us spoke as we pleased, we just knew better than to brag. My mother trained horses for the Baron Lassiter until a whole year went by and she still wasn’t paid. That was when their household broke up. My mother chose to go to Sarendan with the baroness and her daughter. I visit when I have home leave. You would like Sarendan, I think. I hear that it’s as beautiful as Sartor.”

  “Baron Lassiter!” I thought of Lasva’s romance. “How well did you know any of the Lassiters?”

  “Only saw them if they showed up wanting to ride. My sister and I spent most of our time in Alsais with my uncle, who started our scribe training early so we’d be selected at the testing.”

  “And you were chosen.”

  “Along with you.”

  “But when you went to your mother, you learned about horses.”

  “All New Year’s Week we rode and rode, no matter how much it snowed.”

  The queen had known about Birdy’s background, but I hadn’t. I thought about that, and about how strange it is that one can read and read about the many kinds of love, but only experience teaches one to widen one’s perceptions to include another.

  ELEVEN

  OF MERCY

  “W

  hat is the news from home?” Pelis would ask from time to time, always in a whisper and with sideways glances. It took no insight to comprehend that she was hungry for crumbs from Colend, so I gave her the gossip gleaned from Lasva’s scrollcase, the only two items of import being that Ivandred’s cousin Prince Macael had returned to Colend to visit court (“He wants someone like our princess,” Pelis observed, and added, “but there isn’t anyone like her.”) At the end of the month came the news that Macael and Ananda were to return to Enaeran to wed.

  “Lady Ananda,” Pelis said, kissing the backs of her fingers in Willful Blindness. “Did you know her own servants call her Lady Demanda? How long before that pretty Enaeraneth prince regrets that?”

  Birdy and Anhar vanished on Restdays, so I studied the magic lessons I found waiting for me each time I transferred to the chamber: how to purify water; the capture of sound; the formation of a cleaning frame.

  The Herskalt himself came once, and I asked to learn about wards instead of all this basic stuff I would never use even in an emergency. He replied without any sign of emotion, “Review the definition of emergency.” And his assignment? To make a fire stick by myself.

  That meant finding a suitable piece of wood and then repeating the sunlight-gathering spell over and over during daylight hours, then focusing it down to a spark. At least a thousand times.

  After that, my lesson was in the construction of a cleaning frame, which was enormously complicated magic.

  On the morning after I reported to the Herskalt the success of my cleaning frame, I went in to breakfast. When I’d been sitting there a while, the dining room went silent.

  I’d begun sitting alone. I knew it was absurd. I knew that Anhar and Birdy (when he was there) would include me if I sat with them, but there was this part of me that wanted them to seek me out—to value me as me, though I was not a sex partner for either of them.

  I heard Anhar’s light voice on the other side of the room and forced myself not to look, though there was that in her tone that convinced me she sat with Birdy. I closed myself mentally into lesson review so thoroughly that I was startled out of it by the rap of heels on the stone floor—a sound distinct in the sudden silence.

  I turned on my cushion just as Ivandred reached me. Too many years of training forced me into a deep bow. Then I remembered that Marlovens do not bow and jerked upright. So powerful was Ivandred’s presence that no one laughed as I accidentally knocked my cup to the floor.

  Ivandred gave me a slight smile, then said, “The Haranviar has asked me to bring you to Choreid Dhelerei.” “Haranviar” was their title for a crown princess. “We depart as soon as we change the horses and eat.” He was mud-splattered to the waist, his hat spangled with melting snowflakes.

  I fled, rejoicing. I would be traveling with Birdy, I would see Lasva again—she had asked for me! Oh, the joy of knowing there is a welcome, that one is wanted! I would—

  I would no longer be learning magic.

  I stopped. The disappointment was so sharp I just stood there, a hand braced against the smooth plaster of the wall. Then I thought, I transfer to the chamber by magic. So the Herskalt lived in Darchelde? Transfers could be done from anywhere in the world, though I understood that the longer the transfer, the harder it was physically. But people did it all the time. I had done it, when I went south from Alsais to Ranflar each New Year’s Week to visit my parents, though I’d used a transfer token. I did not think that the relative distances were all that different, and the spell was second nature by now.

  These thoughts took no more than a pair of heartbeats, then he said, “Tell the rest of your people.” And he walked away.

  So I would not lose my magic lessons, I thought happily as I ran upstairs to tell Anhar and Pelis and to pack up my few belongings.

  As soon as I reached the courtyard, Lnand and Tesar emerged from the gloom, bulky in their snow-stippled winter gear, their noses red and faces scarf-hidden. “How is Retrend?” one asked, and the other, “How is Fnor?”

  I gave them a quick report on the two, who were recovering steadily, then:

  “Mount up,” Haldren called.

  As the noon bells clanged we clattered out of Darchelde’s great court, the walls lined with people in spite of wet, sloppy snow. Ivandred saluted the towers and the gate, and then we were off.

  We each had horses to ourselves. Birdy rode directly behind us. Knowing he was there made me a little less afraid. I hadn’t spared a single thought for Tesar since we’d first arrived at the castle, but I missed her steadying presence as I rode.

  How soon we forget unpleasant things! The unending cold, the discomfort of fast riding, the horrible travel food, had faded out of mind. Each came back with an unpleasant jolt.

  We rode hard that day. The prince had sent scouts ahead so that fresh horses were waiting, which meant a great deal of galloping.

  It was difficult to see anyone inside the bulky woolen hats, mufflers, gloves, coats, and the like. As the sun set, and we slowed not to camp but to change horses again, I overheard someone cursing and the tail end of someone else saying, “… dead long before New Year’s.”

  I remembered what the king had ordered: I
want you back by Convocation! Ivandred was expected to execute his orders and cross half the kingdom by New Year’s Firstday. But that was only three days off. I’d seen the big map on the wall down in the dining room enough times to gauge distances. Even if we galloped all the time, we could not possibly reach Choreid Dhelerei in three days.

  We rode through the night, torches streaming.

  The first dawn was bleak and blue. I shivered with cold, hands and feet numb. Ivandred called a halt at last when we reached a frozen river. A check made it clear that we could get across, we did not have to seek a bridge.

  As the warriors dismounted to lead the animals across the ice, I became aware of squeaking snow near me, and hoped to find Birdy. Instead, Ivandred gazed down at me through bloodshot eyes as he clutched a carefully wrapped roll of cloth against his chest.

  “Come,” he said hoarsely.

  Too cold and tired for anything beyond the briefest spurt of astonishment, I bent into the wind and followed him some paces away, until we lost sight of the others. The howl of the wind guaranteed we would not be overheard.

  “We can talk here.” I could only see his blue eyes, which seemed so expressionless to me as he went on, his breath clouding, “The Herskalt says that he is teaching you.”

  “Yes.” I made The Peace. “Our queen ordered me to watch over her sister, and learn about magic if I could.”

  His head turned. I saw how exhaustion-marked his eyes were. I could see the effort it took for him to speak.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I learned magic for the same reason. To protect the kingdom. My father… does not know.”

  So that’s why the Herskalt lived at Darchelde, I thought.

  Ivandred looked around. “He said you read Fox’s record.”

  “I read some of it,” I said, hoping he was not about to examine me on its details.

  He shrugged, his arm holding the rolled cloth protectively against him. “There is the Marlovar Bridge,” he said.

  Snow obscured all but an arched line over the river.

  “I used to come here often,” he continued, “whenever I rode either way. By transfer, once I learned how. Somewhere nearby was where Inda hid. He was not quite twelve. Saw the shape of the attack. Within four years he was famed over the world. At sixteen, I…” He gazed into the whirling white of the departing blizzard. “It’s a merciless measure of success,” he said finally, his voice rough.

  Then he gestured with the rolled thing. “Here is his wedding shirt, worn by my ancestors for several generations. We have not had a gunvaer—that is our word for queen— for a century, but everyone knows of this shirt. In their eyes, I will not be married to Lasva until I wear it and we say the vows before Convocation.”

  Another pause.

  “My father forced Andaun-Sigradir to ward the castle so that it is impossible for me to transfer. I can only use transfer tokens made by Andaun. They alert the Sigradir to my presence, and he tells my father.” He looked my way. “Or I can be sent, which will not alert Andaun. I will give you the Destination pattern for the royal castle. You must transfer me.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  I’d transferred myself enough times by now to know how to do it. Transferring another was essentially the same—except for the knowledge that another’s life depends upon your skill. He described a Destination that he’d made outside the city gates and beyond the perimeter of the wards. “Got that?” he asked.

  “Please repeat it once more?”

  He did. I took off my gloves so I could see my hands, as I couldn’t feel my fingers performing the right gestures. Wind flayed them with tiny needles of ice, but I was fast, and he vanished.

  I struggled back into my gloves, stumbled downwind and discovered the rest of them had crossed the river. I found them awaiting me on the riverbank, and shortly after that we encamped on a farm, in a barn, the exhausted warriors busily caring for the animals.

  On New Year’s Firstday, I felt Lasva’s scrollcase fill with notes. When we camped, Haldren brought out some hoarded distilled drink and passed it from hand to hand. The Marlovens began to sing the Hymn to the Beginnings:

  Marloven of ancient day, riding Hesea Plain

  Wide as the wind’s home, free as the falcon.

  Led by three war lords wielding the wreath:

  Montrehauc of the mountains, first of the lords.

  Montrevair of the plains, makers of kingdoms,

  Montredaun-An war leaders, Marloven kings.

  Allies united ’neath gold-eagle banner…

  At the same time, two weeks away in Choreid Dhelerei, Ivandred stood beside Lasva, who shivered in a gown of royal blue silk. Ivandred gripped her hand tightly. He wore the four hundred-year-old shirt, which was far too wide for his slim body, and too short. It came down to the tops of his legs instead of mid-thigh. Lasva had been afraid that the sight would cause smirks and averted eyes, but the moment they walked out to stand below the king on the royal daïs, the entire room went silent with awe at the appearance of that age-yellowed cloth. They all knew what it was, covered over with crooked embroidery of birds and horses, ships and suns, and animals that Lasva couldn’t identify.

  Lasva could hear Ivandred’s breathing and feel the tension he tried to lock inside as he took the sword the king handed him, and gravely held it out so that she could close her hand over part of its hilt, the second time she had ever touched a weapon. His fingers in the icy air were cold, and so were hers, but together they made a little warmth as they spoke the words of marriage-union, which bound them in the eyes of the Marlovens.

  She had learned the words but they meant little to her. Meaning had shrunk to the steady pair of ice-blue eyes meeting hers, and the quiet desperation she saw there, that he tried so hard to hide. So she spoke the words, pitching her voice to be heard, as she’d been trained, and shuttered away the ironic knowledge that for all those listening her marriage in Colend, brilliant as it had been, had no significance.

  When they finished, she felt Ivandred’s fingers tighten, and his hand guided hers as together they lifted the sword skyward, signifying prince and princess, future harvaldar and future gunvaer.

  Then the king’s raspy squawk rang out as he led the Hymn to the Beginnings:

  Riding the ranges, valiant and venturous,

  Marlovan war kings shielded the holdings

  Jarls sworn and loyal, round the high throne.

  In the king’s hall, and in castles all over the kingdom, as well as around our low fire in a barn, people sang words similar to those I’d read in the record, up there in Darchelde tower—but then, the language had changed. As yet I had no interest in why.

  War-drums and danger, all days and weather

  Broken like spear-shafts, bones of the enemy!

  Flame-flensed and flindered all traitors’ shields!

  Such was the conquest by Montredaun kings.

  As soon as the song finished, someone started another, and then another, as a fiery beverage was followed by jugs of cider. Though we had so little in common with these Marlovens, for this brief time, we were united in our humanity, our shared exhaustion and wish for comfort, and our hope in the year’s turning.

  The hot cider and the distilled liquor warmed us. It was followed by the local beer, which I’d never tasted before my arrival in this country. It was delicious, made from barley and oats. It warmed the insides as effectively as the cider, and it tasted better than that sticky-sweet, rye-based travel bread, which I nonetheless choked down until the edge of hunger was gone. I joined Pelis and Anhar, where bedrolls had been spread out against one wall of the barn. Pelis soon fell asleep. Anhar gnawed determinedly at travel bread gripped in both hands, wisps of her black hair—usually so tidy—draggled around her blotched countenance.

  I stretched out between the two dressers. Anhar’s shadow slipped over me, but I was comforted by her presence, remembering how she’d cared for me after that terrible fire. She seemed unaware; yes, her eyes were clos
ed as she worked determinedly at the bread.

  Rhythmic movement caught my attention, the whirl of color in time to a galloping rhythm. On the other side of the barn Birdy sat, juggling his silks in small circles, the rhythm steady, the circles perfectly described, braiding the air in a neverending pattern. Watching it was oddly soothing. He smiled at me, but then his gaze shifted to Anhar, and the quality of his smile changed. I can hardly say how. Something in the muscles beside his eyes, the upper lip, conveyed tenderness. Special meaning. I lay down to sleep, a last drifting thought, He knows how to juggle. When did that happen?

  ONE

  OF HYMNS AND BEGINNINGS

  H

  alfway through New Year’s Week, we halted in a snowy field with nothing in sight. The Marlovens all got out their best battle tunics and affixed banners to their lances, which were snapped together and carried once again. Even the horses were curried, though some of the snowdrifts were chest deep. Lnand leaned over. “We’re nigh the city.”

  Anhar muttered, “They have to furbish up for that?”

  “I suspect it’s like arrival at Lily Gate,” I said.

  “Ah-ye. I didn’t think they had any manners at all,” Anhar said cheerfully.

  We mounted up, riding in strict column over a hill, and there, on the horizon, was Choreid Dhelerei, the biggest walled city I’ve ever seen. It appeared, through the light snow, to be built on three hills, with too many towers to count. When we neared enough to see the figures on the gate, Haldren raised his fist, and the horses moved from trot to canter and thence to gallop.

  Horns blew from the walls, echoing from tower to tower. As we approached the gates people scattered. We galloped through the gate without a check, the banners streaming, clattered up a street that was lined with people, most of whom either cheered or touched fingers to chests. The walls here had poles from which banners flew. The highest tower flew the great stylized gold eagle against the black of Marloven Hesea.