by David Weber
Her blue eyes looked up very seriously, and he was deeply touched, as if a warm finger had brushed his cold amnesiac world. He felt a surge of grateful tenderness…and protectiveness.”
“I’d be honored to carry your favor, Lady Gwynna.”
“You don’t mind I’m only ten?” she asked anxiously. “I’ll be eleven in a few weeks.”
“I don’t mind at all,” he told her solemnly.
“Well, good! I mean, you’re the only one I can ask. I can’t ask Poppa, because he’s already Poppa. And Wencit is…well, he’s just Wencit. I can’t imagine him being anyone else. Not even for me.”
“I understand,” Kenhodan said, but he didn’t, really. He could feel the girl’s presence himself, an acute awareness of the happy deviltry which followed her around. He wasn’t even surprised by his own sense of protectiveness, yet it seemed strange to see such tenderness from the ancient wizard, and Gwynna’s choice of words suggested something even deeper.
Don’t go reading too much into things, he chided himself. It’s obvious he and Bahzell and Leeana are close. It’s probably just friendship.
“I thought you would,” Gwynna said cheerfully, “and I won’t give you anything dumb, either. I brought something special. Here!”
She handed him a straight, heavy object fifteen or sixteen inches long. It was wrapped in oiled silk and weighted his hand with the solidity of tempered steel. He recognized the dagger instantly, and his eyebrows rose.
“Momma and Poppa gave it to me two years ago. If we were still on the Windy Plain I’d already be training as a war maid, so Momma said I might as well start here, and Lentos agreed. It’s hard, but it’s fun, too. But this is special—a corsair dagger Captain Brandark brought back from his last big sea fight when he was still captain of Poppa’s ship. He gave it to Momma as a souvenir when he bought his first ship. I thought you’d like to have it, since you already have his old sword. And it’ll be lots more useful than a stupid old handkerchief!”
Her scorn was withering.
“I agree,” he said, touched by her hardheaded practicality.
He unwrapped the sheathed dagger, drew the blade, and examined it carefully. It might have come from a corsair, he realized, but it was dwarven work, and an outstanding example of it. It carried the rippled pattern of water steel, and the double-edged blade was sharp enough to slice the wind.
He looked up to find her gazing at him just a bit anxiously and slid the weapon back into its scabbard. Then he stood, unbuckled his belt, and threaded the free end through the sheath’s belt loop. He re-fastened it and sat back down on the bench.
“I shall carry your favorite everywhere, Lady Gwynna,” he told her gravely.
“Good!”
She patted his elbow and climbed down to help clear the table, and Kenhodan looked up to meet Bahzell’s eyes. The hradani’s gaze measured him thoughtfully, then moved to his daughter. Kenhodan felt a little abashed by the fierce love on Bahzell’s face, but there was something else there, too. An inexplicable sadness, perhaps.
“It’s a good lass she is,” Bahzell said softly.
“Yes, she is,” Kenhodan agreed.
Bahzell nodded sharply. Then he drained his tankard noisily, thumped it to the table empty, caught Wencit’s eye, and jerked his head at the door.
“Young Frolach was after finding Brandark. He says Brandark told him it’s pleased he’ll be to give us ship room as far as Man Home, as he’s a cargo bound there. If we’re wishful, he’ll bear us farther—to Coast Guard, say. But it’s in my mind you’d be minded to go the last bit by land?”
“Good thinking,” Wencit agreed. “Angthyr’s so unsettled merchants will shun the ports, so any arrivals by ship will certainly attract attention. We can go overland through South Pass, instead.”
“So I thought my own self,” Bahzell nodded. “What do you say, Kenhodan?”
“One route’s the same as another.” Kenhodan shrugged “I seem to recall a little about Angthyr, but not enough to make suggestions.”
“Aye.” Bahzell tugged a watch from his pocket and glanced at it, then rose. “Well, let’s be taking our leave, then, and I’ll be telling you what I can about Angthyr as we’re walking.”
Kenhodan and Wencit rose with him and began gathering the gear Leeana had chosen while they slept. Each had his personal weapons, but Leeana had also provided Kenhodan with a longbow of Vonderland yew. Bahzell carried a huge composite horse bow (one far beyond his own strength, Kenhodan suspected), but Wencit had neither requested nor been offered a missile weapon.
The new bow suited Kenhodan. It was a magnificent weapon, and though he’d had no opportunity yet to try it, he’d felt a sort of natural affinity for it—almost, but not quite, like the one he’d felt the night before for Brandark’s old sword—the moment he touched it. It wasn’t quite the heaviest he could pull, but it felt good in his hands, and he liked the supple way the wood yielded to his muscles. Vonderland provided the best of the Empire’s archers, and they were one reason even the heaviest cavalry extended profound respect to an Axeman army.
In addition to weapons, each had a heavy pack of concentrated food, two or three changes of clothing, and two blankets, plus other incidentals required for a comfortable camp. Kenhodan belted on his water bottle and checked his coal oil-filled fire striker and the small pouch of medicines Leeana insisted each of them carry. Clearly she knew what was needed for moving quickly but comfortably through rough terrain. Which, he reflected, shouldn’t have surprised him in the least in a war maid commander of a thousand.
He glanced doubtfully at his heavy riding boots. They were scarcely new, but they were still serviceable—with a little mending, at any rate—yet they seemed out of place on a ship. Nor did he wish to trudge too many leagues wearing them.
“Don’t be worrying,” Bahzell said, following his gaze and thoughts. “It might be they’re not much for walking, but once we reach Man Home it’s horses we’ll need.”
“Ah, yes. Horses.” Kenhodan’s tone was noncommittal, and Bahzell grinned at him.
“Don’t you be fretting about a thing, Kenhodan. It’s years ago Leeana’s folk taught me as how they’re a sight better under a man’s seat than in his belly.”
“I wondered about that,” Kenhodan admitted.
“Aye, I thought as how you might.” Bahzell slapped him on the shoulder. “Mind you, I’m thinking Walsharno and Gayrfressa’d’ve had a sharp word or three for me if I’d not gotten that straight! But now, if you’ll excuse me?”
The hradani swept his wife and daughter into a universal hug. Gwynna brushed away a few tears and hugged him strangulation tight, yet she seemed confident her father could deal with anything he encountered. Leeana was less tearful, but her strained eyes showed a clearer appreciation of the risks.
“Only small pieces of hide this time, now!” she admonished him.
“Not enough to patch a shoe,” he promised. “I’m after needing what I have—I’ve big bones to wrap it around.”
“See you remember!” She tugged his ears fiercely, her eyes bright.
“And how should I forget, with you so ready to tan it for me if I should?” He gave her a final kiss and set her on her feet, then turned to his daughter. “Gwynna, you be minding your mother.”
“Like always, Poppa,” she promised demurely.
“Don’t you ‘Like always’ me, wretch! I said to be minding her!”
“Yes, Poppa.”
She giggled, and Bahzell frowned at her. She only grinned back, cheeks dimpled and ears twitching gently in amusement. He sighed and closed his eyes in mock exasperation, then smiled back and touched her cheek.
“All right, then,” he said more gently, and turned back to his companions. “Let’s be off—if we’re after missing the tide, Brandark’ll tan my hide before Leeana does!”
The trio set out briskly. The rain-fresh air was cool about their ears and the sun was bright. Workmen labored to replace the shattered windows and broken
door, their sober expressions eloquent of their opinion of the night’s events. It was a common Belhadan belief that offering any sort of violence to anyone on Bahzell’s premises went far beyond foolishness. An attack on his own family was as near to suicidal as anyone was likely to come. Yet their sobriety stemmed less from the fact that someone had been mad enough to attempt it than from the fact that, for all the damage, only a single body had been delivered to the Guard. But when they set eyes on Wencit, a fresh mutter went up. They all respected Bahzell, and Wencit’s reputation was known throughout Norfressa, but they were understandably eager to have such a chancy citizen as far from their city as possible.
Bahzell exchanged words with their foreman before leading off down the street, and Kenhodan was amused by the way the man’s eyes followed Wencit in passing. He could almost feel the foreman’s fingers itch to sketch a sign against evil, but the man’s awe of the wizard clearly held him in check.
Kenhodan was unhappy to leave the Iron Axe. In a sense, it was the only home he’d ever known, and Bahzell and Leeana—and Gwynna—had made him truly welcome. He laid a hand on the dagger hilt at his belt, and a warm awareness of acceptance wrapped itself about the ice of his missing memory. But he noticed that Bahzell never looked back. The hradani’s spine was pikestaff straight as he stepped out down the street, yet his ears—expressive as always—were half-turned, as if to catch any sound from behind as he strode away.
Kenhodan wished he remembered having loved someone that much.
* * *
The busy streets were a waking dream for Kenhodan.
Every sight was new, as fresh as the air he breathed, yet none of them were completely out of context. It was as though he’d read bits and pieces about a hundred subjects, not as if he’d actually seen or experienced them. He knew Belhadan was one of the great cities of Norfressa, but the wide, clean street was totally new to him, and the neat buildings with their bright roofs, mingled with the shops and houses burrowed into the mountains’ bones, delighted him. The cool air of the northern spring was like wine, and the vitality humming about him gave him a pleasure he couldn’t describe. It was almost…possessive, as if Belhadan were his and his alone, the product of his own labors.
The absurdity of that thought appealed to him somehow, and he chuckled as he contemplated it.
They turned into the Street of Merchants, a wide avenue of shops and counting houses. The crowds were thicker, and the mingled scents of cargoes from half a hundred ports blended with the morning. Kenhodan shook his head, about to laugh in pure delight, and then they turned another corner.
Blue and silver flashed before him in a wrinkled blanket. They stood high on a steep hillside, the paved street falling away to Hirahim’s Wharf and the vast Bay of Belhadan, where the sea thrust deep into the land. The sight hit Kenhodan like a hammer, and his pulse leapt, his eyes glistened, and his throat filled with an indefinable ache of longing that struck him motionless.
He stopped so suddenly that Bahzell walked straight into him. Kenhodan stumbled at the impact—a hradani well over seven feet tall took some stopping—and would have fallen if Bahzell hadn’t caught him. The hradani held him upright as he gasped for breath, the wind knocked out of him, then chuckled gently and set him on his feet.
“Well, now,” Bahzell said softly. “I’m thinking you’re a man might love the sea—and she’s enough to strike anyone dumb on a morning like this.”
“I never dreamed—” Kenhodan said softly, then chopped off. How could he say what he’d known in dreams? He was a man-shaped emptiness…yet not even the bitterness of that thought could quench his wonder and an awe that was almost reverence.
“Aye,” Bahzell said, drawing him into motion once more. “I know. She takes some learning, the sea, and there’s some as curse her when they know her, but even they can’t leave her. Not and live happy.”
Kenhodan glanced up and surprised a look in the brown eyes which humbled him. The hradani looked back down at him and grinned suddenly, driving the longing from his own face, and shook Kenhodan gently.
“Well, now! If it’s your feet you’ve found again, I’m thinking I offered to tell you a mite about Angthyr. Would it happen you’re still minded to hear it?”
Kenhodan nodded, grateful for the change of subject. He’d felt as if too much of Bahzell’s soul had shown itself when he looked at the sea.
“Now Angthyr, that’s after being a tangled subject,” Bahzell mused, tapping gently on his sword belt and humming for a moment as he ordered his thoughts.
“Aye, then,” he said finally. “Angthyr’s after being one of the Border Kingdoms, as folk call them—one of the smaller states on the King Emperor’s borders. Angthyr’s the largest of the lot, and one of the most important, I’m thinking, for it’s a buffer twixt South Province and the Empire of the Spear. And Emperor Soldan, as took the throne some fifteen years back, is after being as expansionist as old Phrobus himself. Not that he’s the first Spearman as thought such as that, you understand. Truth to tell, most of the King Emperor’s treaties with the Border Kingdoms are aimed at keeping Soldan at home, if you take my meaning.”
“And since Angthyr’s the biggest Border Kingdom, it’s also the one Soldan wants worst, right?”
“Aye.” Bahzell pulled out his pipe and packed it with coarsely cut black tobacco as he went on. “There’s naught but two ways to Angthyr from here: the sea and the South Road. The sea route’s after taking you to Coast Guard, the capital of Angthyr’s West Barony. It’s a tall city, that is, strong enough to make armies weep, but we daren’t go so far by sea, so I’m thinking we’ll take the South Road from Man Home. It’s after crossing the East Walls at South Wall Pass, the King Emperor’s southernmost fortress.”
Bahzell thrust the pipe stem into his mouth, and Kenhodan kindled a light with his fire striker, then sneezed as the strong smoke burned his nose.
“I can see how a journey that long offers plenty of room for attacks,” he said, maneuvering to stay upwind. “But just what’s going on inside Angthyr?”
“Ah, you’ve set your hand on the meat of the problem,” Bahzell agreed, his eyes gleaming as Kenhodan dodged to smoke. “Angthyr’s after having an internal crisis of its own just this minute, you see. King Faltho took and died unexpectedly four years back, and there’s some as question the illness that took him off so sudden, as you might be saying. But what’s after worrying folk most is that his only heir was a daughter, Fallona.”
“Really? Was she crowned?”
Kenhodan found a position which let the wind carry the smoke away and hid a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that it smelled all that foul, but simply that it was so strong. He wondered what Bahzell was smoking. Condemned cordage came to mind.
“Aye, that she was. But, you see, while there’s no law in Angthyr as says a woman can’t hold the crown, there’s no law as says she can, either, and Fallona’s succession has the nobles all a-twitter. There’s some of them only accepted her to avoid civil war, and even the most of those were none too happy when she wed Prince Altho—or Duke Altho, as he was then. He’s after being young, and they’d no mind to see one of their own raised above them. Besides, he’s no man to stand for foolishness, and he’s a name as a soldier troublemakers aren’t so very likely to find comforting.”
“Is someone actually disputing the succession, then?”
“In a manner of speaking, but there’s the rub. King Faltho’s brother up and died as a mere lad and his sister’s no child of her own, so there’s not a man at all, at all, as has any blood claim to the throne. If it’s not after being Fallona and Altho, why, then it’s every man for himself, and Phrobus take the hindermost.”
“Messy.”
“It’s a gift for understatement you have,” Bahzell observed. “I’m thinking it’s only the fact no one’s sure he’d be the one as ends up on top as has kept swords sheathed this long, and even that’s not so likely to keep them there much longer. And to be making bad worse, Soldan’s taken
an interest. He knows the King Emperor can’t be intervening unless the royal house asks it, but Fallona’s people daren’t ask. One sniff of Axemen in the kingdom and hell wouldn’t hold the trouble as would break loose.”
“I see. And we’re going into that?”
“Oh, aye. Wencit’s not one to let a little thing like that natter him, lad. And there’s more to tell. Don’t be blabbing it about in Angthyr unless you’ve a liking for dungeons, but Soldan’s after having his hooks into some of the great nobles. Duke Doral of Korwin’s as deep into it with Soldan as Wulfra or Ranalf of Carchon, and Tomanāk only knows about Earl Wullem. I’ve my doubts as Wullem knows himself! And as for Baron Shaisan—!”
Bahzell removed his pipe from his mouth and spat into the gutter.
“I’ve the Order’s reports about Angthyr, lad, and the way it’s looking, the only help Fallona and Altho can be counting on are her mother’s kinsmen, Darsil of Scarthū and Baron Rochfro of Coast Guard, and probably Baron Ledo. But Ledo’s problems enough of his own for any man along the marshes, and Darsil’s as good as at war with Doral already. The blood’s always been hot betwixt them, and now it’s after starting to flow. And behind it all, Soldan’s after sending in money and advice and generally giving the fire a kick whenever it looks like dying down a bit.”
“I see,” Kenhodan said again. “And Baroness Wulfra?”
“There’s one foul enough for Sharnā,” Bahzell said bluntly. “A sad thing it is, too, for her father was a good enough man. I knew him well, and her family’s one as has served Angthyr well in its time. But she’s a bad one. She’s one of the few rulers as allows sorcery to be practiced in her lands, and that’s after telling you something. Come to that, it’s not so very long ago—no more than a year or two before Faltho’s death—as Wulfra admitted she practiced it herself, although to be hearing her tell it, her magic’s white as new fallen snow.”