Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  I still hadn’t found a way to reveal her plot without revealing myself. But I felt I had to act. I could not prevent a kingdom from going to war, but I had the information to save one child. I needed only the means.

  So many things can go wrong with anonymous notes, beginning with the person never finding it, but I did not know what else to do. After tearing up too many attempts at an explanation without revealing the source, I finally settled on a scrollcase note to Kaidas: If you wish to save your son’s life, observe your son’s riding lesson tomorrow. Do not reveal yourself.

  If Carola was still spying on him and got to it first, I did not know what might happen—except that Tatia would probably try another way. But he opened it and stood there puzzled, asking himself useless questions as I writhed with impatience.

  I spent that night between Darchelde and the garden, constantly checking. Kaidas slept, but his dreams were a distasteful mix of memory and erotic components. I left quickly and returned to work another hour or two on the wards.

  At the Hour of Daybreak, I found Kaidas in the Alarcansa barn hayloft, looking down at the stalls from above. I stayed there, gratified at his shock when Tatia stole into the barn, moving like a shadow. Kaidas watched her talking to the horse in a cooing voice. All he could see from above was that she was doing something at the animal’s hindquarter.

  Before she scurried away she looked back once, her mouth twisted in a smirk of relief and triumph. He climbed down the ladder. None of the stable hands were about. He let himself into the horse’s stall, and ran his hands expertly over the horse’s back, legs, and finally, finally he checked the shoes. I waited in agony lest he miss the stone, but he was too expert for that. He pried it loose, soothing the horse, which had shifted uneasily, ears twitching back.

  He stood there looking down at the stone on his palm, and then moved to the gear. Again he ran his hands expertly over everything, turning buckles and straps over, until he inserted his finger beneath the saddle—and jerked it out again. Then he called, “Benisar!”

  A shout came from the far end of the barn, where there was a faint glow as the stable hands began their day. “My lord duke?” came a call.

  “Bring a lantern.”

  Kaidas waited where he was until the swinging yellow light appeared in the hands of a surprised stable hand.

  “Did you see Lady Tatia in here earlier?” Kaidas asked.

  “No one’s been here, that is, no one came through the palace door,” the man answered, staring at the saddle, where Kaidas wiggled his finger through the hole. The man flushed. “I’ll turn off Solin this day—the Young Heir’s equipment is his responsibility—”

  “This is not Solin’s fault,” Kaidas said. “Thank you.” He hefted the saddle and started toward the palace, ordering the words he was going to speak to Carola and anticipating her questions and her refusal to believe anything he said about her cousin.

  My concentration was beginning to blur. I released the contact, and my head swam. Swiftly I transferred to Darchelde and fell onto my seat, gulping air.

  When I dared to return, I found Kaidas in the middle of ordering servants about. They seemed to be packing. I was going to delve into his memory, when I decided to see it from Carola’s perspective.

  I shifted—and found her closeted with Tatia, who wept, her thin hands covering her face. “… but he’s lying,” Tatia sobbed. “Someone is. Who wouldn’t even come forward—how could you believe an anonymous note?”

  “Tatia, the fact that one of my servants was driven to be anonymous deeply disturbs me. Have they been corrupted? I am going to interview every servant, and if you have ever threatened any of them, or done anything like this before, you are going to make restitution.”

  “I didn’t do anything. That Lassiter hummer lied about me! He’s always hated me!”

  Carola paused, seized by memory: Kaidas, saying in the even voice of decision, I beg to make it clear that I do not hold you responsible for Tatia’s action. However, I do hold you responsible for the poisonous atmosphere of this place, which I am ever more aware of on each return. I am going to remove my son not just from Tatia’s murderous intentions but from your anger. You are an angry woman, Carola, and anger begets anger.

  “Kaidas has never lied to me,” Carola said to Tatia. “Whatever else you want to say about him I will not defend, except for this: he has always told me the truth.”

  “I have always told you the truth.”

  “I no longer believe that.”

  “How could you accuse me, your most loyal companion, friend, cousin. You have called me sister!”

  Carola turned away from her cousin and stared out into the courtyard. Kaidas is right. I am so angry, she thought. I am so angry that I never knew I was angry. The anger had dulled down into pain and shock.

  She turned around, and the anger flared. “You lied for me, Tatia. You lied for me to the entire court, when you slandered Lasthavais Lirendi. The moment Kaidas left my chamber I sent the Chief Herald to petition the queen to have you written out of the line of succession. You can kill us all, but you will never have Alarcansa.”

  SIX

  OF SWORDS AND THE PRESENCE OF CATS

  A

  s I transferred back to the royal castle, I resolved never to look at Colend again. The matter with Tatia was finished, and the cost was too high. Besides the chance of discovery, there was Carola’s assumption that her own servants had written the note and her determination to interrogate them. This was a consequence I’d not foreseen. I did not know what collateral damage my action would do to innocent people. Then there was the hurt I felt at seeing Birdy, even through someone else’s eyes. I did not need all those old feelings stirred up.

  “What is your progress, Scribe?”

  “I can see the remaining layers of wards,” I said to Ivandred. “There are eight.”

  He gave me a nod of approval, and walked away. As always, I felt relief, and an exhortation to work harder.

  Once again I buried myself in work, but my reward was always another visit to the dyr.

  As I ran to the queen’s suite, I overheard the guards talking in the high voices of celebration. The only person inside was the duty runner, a young Marloven girl. “Where is the gunvaer?” I asked.

  “Not here,” was the reply.

  “Do you know why the bells are clanging like that?”

  She grinned, her eyes wide that the Sigradir was ignorant. “Victory ring,” she said. “Perideth fell. Jayad is safe, and Perideth—Fera—is ours again.”

  A day later, the entire castle went wild again. The triumphant king had transferred back, to make military arrangements. Word winged all over that he would stay long enough to preside over a midnight victory bonfire, then he’d be off again. I did not expect to see him and so was surprised when everyone snapped into rigidity while I was at the garrison, busily putting purifying spells on a load of new buckets that would be heading south on a supply wagon.

  I finished my work and found Ivandred waiting. “Walk with me,” he said and, when we were out of earshot of the others, “You’ve done well, Sigradir. How is your progress?”

  “I believe I have seven layers left.”

  “Here is some incentive to get the wards finished. When you do, the Herskalt says he can return to us for good. I am giving him Darchelde in the interim.”

  I said, “Do you need me to go to Perideth, that is, Fera, to establish protective wards?” and then came the question, “Who is going to govern there?”

  Ivandred smiled. “You really are the ideal royal mage,” he observed with an open-handed, friendly gesture as we started up the stairs. “The Herskalt was right. You have no political aspirations—you don’t scheme, you don’t even think about such things.”

  “I think about peace,” I said.

  The amusement went out of his face, leaving him looking tired, even tense. “Yes. I know. I want it, too. But everything I do to bring peace… turns to mirage. Recedes.” The guards a
t the door opened it. When we’d passed through, he said, “The Herskalt promised to see to the Fera wards. He says that these castle ones are the most important of all, and only you can do that. As for governing, I offered Captain Tesar the jarlate. They all know that she’s the best of the skirmish captains. She’s got relations all over the area. They look up to her there. But she turned it down. Rather stay a captain with the First Lancers than leave them to be a jarlan.”

  He started toward his chambers, where already there was a crowd waiting for him, many gathered out in the hall. At the sight of us, they all fell silent.

  He turned his back on them, blinking rapidly. We had stopped directly under a glow globe; at Lasva’s request I’d replaced the torches inside the castle, though outside on the walls they stuck with tradition. Ivandred’s eyes were dark underneath, and I wondered how much sleep he got. “I need the Herskalt,” he said in an undervoice, in his accented Sartoran. “His grasp of strategy is so… I don’t see as far as he does. I need him for the kingdom. I need him for the Academy, and the changes he foresees there.” Ivandred was soon swallowed up in the crowd waiting to speak to him.

  I remembered Fera-Vayir from the Fox memoir, a huge area of land at the southern end of Halia.

  I started toward my tower, sick with reaction. All victory meant to me was more war. I did not get far before I was intercepted by Anhar, who had been waiting quietly behind us, properly out of hearing. “She wants you.”

  I could feel her gaze. I slowed my steps. “Is there something I should know?”

  Anhar whispered in our language, “Are you happy?”

  I was taken aback. “Happy? What prompts this?” I thought immediately of the horrible Totha magic and wondered if rumor had somehow placed me at this latest battle.

  Anhar looked down. My mood shifted when I thought, she feels sorry for me!

  She said, “I only wondered,” as we passed the suite guards. Then she sped away as, behind me, I heard one say tolerantly to the other, “There they go again, talking peacock. You think they celebrate victory with cream cakes?”

  “Either that or bonging like bells,” the other said, to mutual chuckles.

  I found Lasva in her study. I could see my own emotions in her face.

  “There will be a midnight bonfire tonight. Singing and drums. That sword dance. If you call it dancing,” she said, her fingers opening toward the hall beyond. “They expect it, but you do not have to go. Emras, shut the door, please. I know that you are under orders yourself, but I need you as I never have before.”

  “Should I know more about what is going on? I only know what Ivandred told me.”

  “Which is?”

  I fell into old scribe habit and repeated his words as exactly as I could.

  Lasva was walking back and forth again, from wall to wall, as she listened. “That matches what I know. I wish Tesar had taken this promotion. Hadand talked about the loyalty that comes of surviving terrible events together. Like war. Saving one another’s lives, so I guess I can comprehend her preference to stay with the First Lancers. But because she did not accept the promotion, Ivandred has to either choose another southerner who has a lesser claim in others’ eyes—which will annoy the northerners, who are all land-hungry—or else give it to a northerner and offend those in the south.” She drew a breath. “Especially Danrid Yvanavar.”

  “Is he plotting against Ivandred again?”

  “Oh, no. All the letters say that he is full of praise— ‘greatness’ and ‘glory. ‘I find that I do not trust that, it is such a change.”

  “The Herskalt once told me that he is the most loyal of Marlovens, whatever else we think of him.”

  “One can be loyal, yet have ambitions that will harm…” She shook her head. “Where is it going to end?”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Ivandred wants peace, Yvanavar wants peace.”

  “Yvanavar wants glory.” Lasva walked slowly around the perimeter of the room. “As for what happened. The king of Perideth was putting together an alliance to invade the Jayad and Totha, on two fronts. Ten years ago, if you asked me what a front was, I would have talked about artistic embellishments.” She snapped her hands down in the shadow-ward, her fingers stiff. “In secret, this king had his people breaking the Compact and practicing with arrows. Which is the reason one of his putative allies slipped the information about the invasion to Ivandred.”

  “What do they call that, defense or offense?” I asked.

  “I call it war.” Lasva’s voice was low and rough. “I call it a moral trespass, for war is nothing less than the organized murder of other people’s children.” Her walking so close to the wall, her step so quiet and deliberate, it was more like prowling. As if the room were a cage. “I can’t talk to anyone about this. I had to send Marnda home. She’s now part of my royal niece’s staff. Marnda never recovered from the fact that Kendred did not look back. At either of us.”

  She lifted her chin, her mouth a thin line as she struggled to contain tears. Then she said, “Ivandred wants another child, Emras. I told him I wouldn’t until there is peace. He said, ‘I am doing my best to bring you peace.’ That’s what he said. And now this war.” She walked again, as beyond my slit windows across the quad, a ruddy light intensified: they were lighting torches all along the walls. “He wants a child who will learn magic.”

  “I thought I was to tutor Kendred,” I said.

  “Oh, he changed his mind. Said there is too much work, magic and command, for one person. He says that an eight year gap is good, for a second son, or a daughter, who would always look up to Kendred…” She whirled. “Is it always thus, that we are born to someone’s purpose? I was born because of a quarrel between my mother and my sister. Nobody knows that.”

  I suppressed the words, I know.

  “A quarrel.” She looked skyward, tears gathering in her eyes. “Yet all my life I believed I was born out of love and to a greater purpose. Or are we all chance creatures? Why did the Birth Spell work for an old woman in her seventies, having a quarrel with her daughter, yet it did not come to my sister for years and years? Tell me, Emras.”

  “I would if I could. My mother would say that however you were born, you are now loved.” My voice caught—I had not exchanged a meaningful word with my parents for going on five years, and that only in Name Day letters, but now I wished my mother were here.

  Except that I couldn’t tell her anything important.

  “Love,” Lasva repeated, clearly anything but comforted. “I used to know what that means, but I am not so certain of anything anymore.” She lifted her chin again. “I do know melende. I will keep that promise I made to Ivandred: I will bring no second child into a kingdom of war.”

  She started toward the door, then turned. “Did you know that this room was where Tdor Marth-Davan once lived? But you haven’t read Hadand’s letters, have you? Those women were smart, and passionate, and worked for peace. How could they admire that Inda they called Elgar? It is true that he cleared the strait for which he is named, for free trade, but what does that truly mean? It means war, people killing others’ children.”

  That I could fairly answer. “Inda made war because he had to. It’s in the full version of the Fox record, not the truncated one that is copied now, all about war and glory. There’s a passage that Savarend Montredaun-An wrote, when Inda visited him at Darchelde.” I went into recitation mode. “Inda kicked his heels on the battlement for a long time, then said, ‘There’s only one way for us to stop looking for war even if we won’t stop training for it.’

  ‘Take the sword from their hands? That will not happen.’

  ‘Not while we are recognizably Marlovan. But if we shift the honor from the kill to the art, might that be a step toward peace?’”

  Lasva gazed at me, lips parted. “Taking the sword from whose hands? Marlovens?”

  “I think they were talking about the Academy.”

  “He’s talking about their war games. Who would wan
t to play war games?” Lasva cried out, then resumed prowling. “I am being hypocritical, Emras.” The words were low, as if wrung out of her. Gone was the pleasing Colendi cadence. “Is Norsunder just a metaphor for our own evil? It’s in us. It’s in me. Emras, why is it that strong effort can produce mutual pride—if everyone bands together to rebuild a fallen house, or to shore up a bridge on the verge of crumbling, thus saving lives. Then it’s forgotten. But if the same amount of effort is put into a cavalry charge against Olavair, or Perideth, pride keeps the warlike bits of people like Inda living on in hearts and minds through ballads for generations.”

  There had been something in the Fox memoir. Hadn’t he called his own banner—that banner with the strange fox face, that was carried so proudly by the First Lancers now—the banner of the damned? I had to go back and look at it again.

  Lasva spoke on. “Why do sex and pain go together? I see it in myself, Emras. I am ashamed of this want that I never discovered in myself until I came here. I can’t blame the Marlovens, for no one has ever used violence against me.”

  “It is not just here,” I said. “At my Fifteen test, Scribe Halimas talked to us about how Martande Lirendi used his personal beauty as a kind of armor when he rode to war.”

  Lasva flung apart her hands in Bird on the Wing, her fingers stiff and angry. “I am beginning to wonder if war isn’t caused by Perideth or Olavair, but by sex.”

  “Sex? I thought sex was good.”

  “It’s good for you, we’re taught. I do believe that. But, like everything else, there is angry sex, prideful, dominating sex. There is sex where pain heightens the pleasure.” She glanced my way and flicked her hand in Rue. “There are also hatred and greed, but when war is propagated by kings and their political boundaries, I can see the sexual drive. The best sex that Ivandred and I have ever had was after one of his wars. I can see the release of having come through alive, but there was the pride of triumph.”