Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  Birdy cheerfully described the plays and banquets celebrated that day in Alarcansa, not knowing how eagerly I read, nor how much it hurt to read. He had been promoted from trade statistics to vital statistics—recording and sometimes amending birth records. He was not only required to witness at births, he must now attend hearings if parents parted, or if a parent wished to adopt another parent into a family.

  Sometimes I thought about what the Herskalt had said about scribes and power and controlling information. Not that Birdy gave any sign of such intent. He delighted in people, no matter what degree, in all their variety. I relished these small, vivid glimpses into the lives of Colendi I would never meet, appreciating their very ordinariness. As for me, I wrote about what I saw, the language, historical artifacts. I talked about everything but magic.

  We passed northward again. By subtle signs (and lengthened drills) the lancers revealed the anticipatory tension that I associated with Yvanavar. We camped one night short of the border. The Marlovens performed a vigorous dance in commemoration of some important battle long ago, then a flask of distilled liquor passed from hand to hand.

  I heard the tail end of Retrend’s conversation as he offered the flask, “… and I will see and talk to this mysterious sword master—see if I don’t.”

  “Stake?” came the laughing challenge.

  In answer Retrend pulled from his boot a favorite knife, and cast it down to stand in the soil, hilt upright. Those who were wagering against him offered weapons in their turn, amid whoops and crowing laughter.

  I walked away to where Anhar was setting up our tent. “I wonder if anyone keeps the same set of weapons all their lives? Or if they get traded all around in these wagers of theirs, I asked.

  “Who cares?” Anhar said.

  There was no sword master, mysterious or otherwise, while we were there.

  We were scarcely out of sight of Yvanavar’s gate when Retrend looked around, the low sun barely striking a glint in his red hair, as he made certain the Yvanavar escort was not lurking about.

  Then he exclaimed, “Well, that was disgusting.”

  One of the older lancers said, “I thought it was too early for the jarl to be heading south for Convocation. Even at a walk, he’ll get there a month ahead of time.”

  “The jarlan told me that he is making stops at Torac and other places,” I said.

  “Tlen,” Retrend said with meaning.

  “Tiv Evair,” someone else said with the same heavy emphasis.

  I mentally shrugged away politics I couldn’t even pretend to understand.

  Retrend turned my way. “Did the jarlan mention the sword master?”

  “Not a thing,” I replied. I did not tell them that the only conversation I had with the jarlan was about myself. I am told that you are a Colendi scribe.

  So I was trained.

  In Colend, are all scribes taught magic?

  Either explain or say nothing, I could almost hear the Herskalt’s advice, and so I said, Scribes are taught in Colend as they are taught everywhere. I learned magic after I left.

  And Tdiran looked at me just the way the courtiers at home had looked at Jurac Sonscarna.

  “… sword master was on a field run with the young ones, that’s what I was told,” someone said.

  “Banner games,” Retrend replied. “A little late in the season for that.”

  “I’ll take my knife now,” said one of the others, and amid laughter, the weaponry began to change hands as the payoff of the earlier wager, momentarily halting when Anhar spoke up.

  “I know his name.”

  Everyone turned her way. She reddened. “The upstairs maid talks a lot. I listened. The man’s name is Hannik, and she said he comes from some small place beyond the Jayad.”

  “Hannik!” Tesar repeated, and half the lancers laughed.

  “What is droll about this name?” I asked.

  “Only that every third man is named Hannik down that way,” Retrend said, with a salute in Tesar’s direction. She grinned and lifted a shoulder.

  “Why?” I asked.

  They all found that funny.

  “Haven’t you heard that ballad, ‘The Rat and the Lion’?” Retrend asked, grinning.

  “Yes. Several times. It’s about all these animals, each verse a separate one. A rat outsmarts them all and then chooses the lion as its companion after outsmarting it, too.”

  “Nobody explained? It’s about Princess Rat, when she married Hannik Dei,” Retrend said.

  Tesar added, “This was way back when it was all Iascans here. Before we came.” She struck her fist to her chest. “The ‘rat’ is Princess Siar Cassadas. In all the stories, she looked like a rat. Hannik Dei was a tall, blond fellow, son of the famous Adamas Dei of the Black Sword.”

  Anhar said, “The Hannik the Yvanavars hired as sword master is blond, too.”

  “A blond named Hannik,” Retrend repeated. “That narrows it down to a few thousand fellows.”

  Everyone found that hilarious, then they began discussing patterns of drill, both old and new, with the easy knowledge of a lifetime of experience.

  Anhar rode at my side, looking distracted.

  I made certain attention was elsewhere, then asked in our own language, “Is aught amiss, then?”

  “Rat.” She made a shadow-warding. “In Colend, we grow up with the fine statues of people famed for talents or actions that benefited others. And we use the gardens or the buildings that royalty and nobility build when they haven’t fame for anything else. They want to be remembered. What did this princess build, or do, to be remembered? Yet for all these centuries, she is known as Rat for her buck teeth.”

  We had two weeks of the year left when at last we rode into the courtyard of the royal castle.

  It seemed both strange and curiously familiar—as if I’d been gone a lifetime, or only a few hours. Nothing had changed. That impression altered the moment I rounded the stair to the Residence part of the castle, for instead of the ubiquitous smell of dusty stone and old meals, my nose encountered a dank smell that startled me: the long stone hallway had been smoothed over with plaster of a soft gray, so pale it reminded me of moonlight. Midway along, several young men and women were busy—artists, creating huge stylized frescoes of running animals, swooping raptors, all in shades of gray and silver overlapping.

  The doors to the queen’s chamber opened, and runners emerged. Gislan, the tall, somber woman who oversaw the communications between Lasva, her staff, and the female guards, appeared. She touched her fingers to her chest, then said, “I will show you your new chambers.”

  One cannot say that Marlovens do anything in great state, but her pace seemed deliberate as she walked me the rest of the way down the long hall to the double doors leading to Andaun-Sigradir’s tower.

  There was no lingering scent of old man sweat. The plain stone had been scrubbed clean, the oddly shaped main salon with its many doors rendered as comfortable as possible by an astonishing sight: candlesticks of blue crystal, shaped like birds; tables and bed covered in garlanded damask of pale blue; everything straight from Colend. I wondered if these were the furnishings that Lasva would not let herself possess.

  I had glimpsed the bed in a bedchamber, a single slit window deep set in the massive walls letting in a modicum of natural light. Two more chambers lay off the main one in the other direction, one a workroom, the other full of the books Andaun had left behind.

  I ran my fingers along spines and scrolls: most of them old, careful records of castle and kingdom renewal spells, twin to what I had made on my journey. A few books of magic… but those on the upper levels appeared to be long-unused elementary spells, books, or experiments. Nothing important. Of course he would have taken those with him. I did not look at the bottom shelves, tightly packed and perfunctorily dusted.

  “Thank you,” I said to Gislan, though I knew whose orders lay behind the labors. “Will you show me the way to the Chief Herald?”

  I knew where the hera
lds’ wing was—beyond the Great Hall—but I had never stepped inside. It was a bewildering maze of narrow corridors and rooms. Gislan left me outside a chamber with a stream of runners coming and going. The old Chief Herald was talking to a circle of heralds. When he saw me, he stopped talking, and took the scroll that I had labored over during my long year of travel. By now it was sadly rumpled and smudged in a way that would have gained me deportment marks from the Senior Scribes—who would never have imagined a scribe, much less a mage, traveling and living as I had.

  He made no comment on the state of it, but read rapidly, his brow furrowed.

  Then he gave me an approving eyebrow lift. “This is exactly as I would have done it myself. Thank you, Sigradir.”

  “Of course,” I said and departed, wondering if the peacock had grown a feather or two.

  I headed to the queen’s chambers, to find Lasva approaching from the opposite hall. Though she dressed in the Marloven robe, she still moved with the gliding step of a Colendi; her curling dark hair was braided, but she’d twisted it up in a flattering knot, instead of wearing it fastened in loops behind the ears.

  “Emras. It is good to see you back.” I noticed she did not say “home,” and wondered if she was aware of the distinction.

  I made a full bow and spoke my thanks for the tower room.

  “Are you pleased?” she asked.

  I praised everything, from the fine Colendi bedding to the furnishings, as she smiled with delight, then I said, “Will the king be expecting me to report?”

  “He walked down to the garrison to meet your escort, and they are probably deep in I did this with my sword and that with my arrows,” Lasva said, leading the way into her suite. “Do you like what I’m doing in the hall? I got the idea from Darchelde. I finally figured out why the Marlovens are so resistant to art, especially when it is combined with comfort. Why they end every discussion with, what suited my ancestors suits me. Do you remember the mural in the old palace, how King Martande was depicted so much larger than life?”

  “Scribe Halimas told us that it was a symbol of power, and of greatness.”

  “I suspect the Marlovens think their ancestors were larger than life. All those songs about truly frightful deeds, couched in terms of glory. If they lived in bare stone rooms, it made them stronger. Emras, I think they lived in bare stone rooms because they were learning how to live in castles. It is so clear from Hadand’s letters that they still thought of themselves as traveling people. Their travel furniture was probably sparse when brought from tents inside halls, and maybe stone seemed comforting if you are used to being awoken in the middle of the night with a sword at your neck. But I seem to be the only one who thinks that our Marlovens now equate comfort with complacency. So I must use all of their symbols of strength and power to create art. And maybe, someday, I can sneak in some comfort.”

  She laughed as her hands swooped in great swirls, following the line of an arch-necked horse, and out and up toward a high-flying hawk. “I went through so many designs, and as always Ivandred said, ‘Do whatever you like.’ But I read in Hadand’s records what they thought of the queen’s suite, which sounded lovely and civilized.”

  “Queen?”

  “Wisthia. Foster-mother to Hadand. You need to read these records, Emras. You will be fascinated, I promise. Anyway, I watched faces as I showed my design around. Lips spoke the Marloven equivalent of soft words, but faces…” She touched her upper lip as she sneered. “They have plenty of honor, but no melende. So then I took Kendred to visit Ingrid-Jarlan in spring, as I think I wrote to you, but I didn’t tell you I was making sketches. And here is the result in the hall. I had Pelis watch from a vantage after the first set was done. No one said much, but she told me that people slowed, and looked, and mostly their gazes were approving. As long as the symbols suggest powerful creatures, ah-ye! Then art is permissible.” Her lips curled with mirth.

  We were interrupted by an unprecedented noise that at first I could not identify, being unused to children. The prince entered with the peculiar stumping, tippy-toe gait of baby turning toddler. He waved his arms, exclaiming nonsense as drool threaded down his dimple of a chin. He was a sturdy child, his eyes wide and blue as the sky. His feathery curls of hair were as light as ducks’ down, though underneath his hair was just beginning to grow in thicker, promising a darker color.

  The sound of that babble caused Lasva to whirl around and clasp her hands. Her attention arrowed to the child as if nothing else existed. To my amazement, she began to babble back in a high voice, causing the child to laugh a joyous, slightly husky sound that reminded me of Lasva’s laugh when I first met her.

  Marnda appeared, cooing and clucking like an old hen. As the boy lurched from object to object, grasping things in both hands and attempting to gnaw on them, Marnda gently disengaged each candlestick, pen, book, and tasseled table cover, then she tried to guide him to some of the toys she carried in a large pocket of her robe. But the boy looked at those with disinterest.

  He tugged at Lasva’s robe. She sat down and pulled him into her lap as she said over his head to me, “One thing that I have learned from Hadand’s letters is the importance of letting the child meet other children in play. I never had that. From as far back as I can remember, court children were introduced into my presence in their best clothes, and we all behaved impeccably, or we would be whisked out to sit on the ponder chair.”

  In spite of her caressing fingers, the child seemed to be aware of her attention on something else besides him and began to fret loudly. Lasva bent her head, kissed him soundly, and murmured to him in a cooing voice.

  Kendred put up his fat arms and stood in her lap, reaching for her braids. He yanked hard on one as he tried to climb her. Tears sprang in her eyes, but she gently disengaged his fingers, then Marnda swooped down and snatched him up, saying, “You must treat mama with respect. You hurt mama. Time for the ponder chair.”

  As soon as Marnda said the words ponder chair, the little prince began to howl as loudly as any of us Colendi had, a sound that diminished rapidly as he was carried off to the nursery.

  Lasva tucked up the loosened strands of hair with one finger as she said, “Ivandred would have us strike Kendred’s hands when he does that. He says that that is the Marloven way. He says that the boy will get rough handling in the Academy, and that Kendred must get used to it as soon as he can. Ivandred says, How will the boy survive the first day? But then all he would tell me is that they have to pass the gate.” She looked worried. “What does that mean? Hadand’s letters only described what she saw of her brother at what they called ‘callover,’ when they line up of a morning.”

  I told her what I had read early on in the Fox record: that the boys had run down a row of other boys who slapped and kicked lightly at them, after which they all have their hair cut so that they looked the same.

  Her brow cleared. “Well if that is all there is!” She took a turn about the room. “There is so much that I cannot control here. So much that they say we peacocks cannot understand.” She touched her lips in the moth kiss. “But I will never accept violence as a way of life. I am struggling to understand how it is necessary for defense, if others come at you with violent intent. And it has happened in this very castle. So I understand when Ivandred tells me I cannot knock out windows to let in more light. I must work with awkward spaces as I can, using a mirror here or there to reflect what light comes in.” She pointed inside a small, narrow chamber with a wall mirror that reflected the two slit windows. “And living things.” She pointed at potted plants. “I had a lot more of them in summer, which brightened things considerably and made the air much fresher. But there was not enough light, except at the very height of summer. These are the only ones left. I will try with different varieties come spring. Say the word, and I will have some put in your tower.”

  I spoke my thanks, and she said with a facility that made me think her words rehearsed, “It is good to have you back. Emras, I know that when yo
u first came to me I regarded you somewhat as a living doll, an extension of myself, who would share all my interests, talk to me when I want to talk. Though I would never want to emulate Hadand’s life—you cannot conceive the barbarity—I concede her wisdom. People have lives outside of one’s own. She knew that from the start. Perhaps she got that from her mother, who was a great woman. If she had lived in Colend, I am convinced there would be statues to her in every town and plays written about her wisdom. Well.” She opened her hands gracefully. “I just want to say how very glad I am that you have become a mage. You have a life outside of mine, but I hope I can still talk to you. I need people to talk to who will not say yes, gunvaer, but who will talk back.”

  Training formed words about the First Rule. But I kept those back and gave her the assurance that she wanted.

  Then she let me go.

  I returned to finish acquainting myself with my tower and to arrange my few things in an effort to make the place mine.

  Last, I broke the illusory spell in my old window embrasure, and brought to my tower the Lover’s Cup that Lasva had asked me to keep. After a moment’s consideration of hiding places, I put it in my trunk. There seemed to be no danger anymore. Who would know what it was, even if they found it?

  I was impatient to get to Darchelde. Three times during my year of travel I’d transferred there to find an empty chamber and a further book of study awaiting me. This new one I copied out—a habit I continued, now that I had my own library.

  On this trip to Darchelde the Herskalt was there. The burst of joy nearly matched my happiness on the day Birdy returned from Chwahirsland. To the Herskalt I could confess my triumphant ruse with the stones. I could report on my studies and share the puzzling aspects of my work with the wards. Most of all, I needed him to comb out the tangle of my thoughts, as our counselors had done for us scribes.