by Greg Keyes
Where am I?
The confusion lasted only a few heartbeats, as he recognized the rocking of a ship, the furnishings of his cabin. His breathing slowed, and he felt the small puckered scar.
Eight years, but in his dreams it hadn't faded at all.
Eight years.
He sat there a few more minutes, listening to the sailors on the deck above. Rather than trust himself to sleep again, he rose to shave. He wanted to look his best today.
He stropped his razor and brought its keen edge to his cheek, then down the square lines of his chin, whisking off the stubble with sure, steady motions. He finished without a single scratch, and with the same blade he trimmed his wheat-colored hair well away from his eyes.
The Black Mary of that day on the beach faded, and his excitement grew. Today! Today he would see Thornrath!
He splashed water on his face, blinked it from his blue eyes, and went above decks.
They reached the Cape of Rovy by midafternoon and sailed with the alabaster cliffs on their left hand for another bell. There, clearing the headland, they turned into Foambreaker Bay, a wide haven in the shape of a moon two-thirds full, circumscribed on the north by the Cape of Rovy and on the south by the Craigs-Above-Ale. West was the open sea, and east, where Saltspear's prow now pointed, stood a marvel so awesome Neil thought his heart would crack. He almost welcomed it, if he could die with this much wonder on him.
“Saints of Sea and Thunder,” he managed weakly.
His earnest thanksgiving was all but swept off by the wind buffeting the deck of the Saltspear, but the old man who stood beside him, Fail de Liery, heard and bit a fierce grin into the westerly. Hair streaming behind him like a banner of smoke, Fail glanced over at Neil, and though his face was pitted, scarred, and wrinkled by threescore years of life, he still seemed somehow youthful when he chuckled.
“There she is, lad,” the elder said. “That's Thornrath. Does she measure up?”
Neil nodded his head dumbly as the cape dropped farther behind them. The eastern sky behind Thornrath was as black as coal smut, and above that darkest lens piled curtains of spume-gray clouds that broke at the meridian. But from the clear western sky, the sinking sun slanted golden light to blaze the bay and the mightiest fortress in the world against that storm-painted canvas.
“Thornrath,” he repeated. “I mean I'd heard—you'd told me—” He paused to try to understand what he was actually seeing, to understand the size.
If Foambreaker Bay was a moon two-thirds full, the entire eastern third of it—perhaps four leagues—was a wall the hue of ivory. Seven great towers of the same stone jabbed at the sky, the centermost rising to such a high sharp point it was dizzying.
As Neil watched, a man-o'-war sailed through one of six arched openings in the wall. He reckoned its masts at more than twenty yards high, and they were in no danger of touching the top of the arch. And the arch was only half as high as the wall.
“Saints!” Neil breathed. “Men built that? Not the Echesl?” He crooked his finger and touched his forehead, a sign against the evil of that name.
“Men built it, yes. They quarried the stone in the Eng Fear mountains, two hundred leagues upriver. It was sixty years in building they say, but now no one can come against Crotheny by sea.”
“It is a wonder,” Neil said. “Proud am I to serve that.”
“No, lad,” Fail said gently. “You don't serve a thing of stone, no matter how grand. Never that. You'll serve Crotheny, and her king, and the royal line of Dare.”
“That's what I meant, Chever Fail.”
“They call a knight sir, in the king's tongue, lad.”
“Sir Fail.” The word sounded awkward, as did every word in the king's tongue. It lacked music, somehow. But it was the language of his lord, and he had learned it. Practiced at it as hard as he had the sword, the lance, and the mace.
Well, almost as hard.
“Sir Fail,” he said again.
“And soon Sir Neil.”
“I can't believe that. How can the king knight me? It's no matter, I'll be proud to serve him, even as a footman. Just so long as I can serve him.”
“Lad, I tilted at Sir Seimon af Harudrohsn when I was only in my eighteenth winter. I fought beside all five Cresson brothers at the battle of Ravenmarh Wold, and I sent Sir Duvgal MaypAvagh—who himself slew more than twenty knights— to the shadowcity, along with his second, before the gates of Cath Valk. I have known knights, lad, and I tell you that in my fifty-six years, I've never seen a lad more deserving of the rose than you.”
Neil's throat tightened further with love and gratefulness to the tough old man. “Thank you, Sir Fail. Thank you for— for everything.”
“That better be the wind in your eyes, son. I don't go for all this courtly weeping, as well you know.”
“It's the wind, chev—sir.”
“Good. And keep it that way. And don't let any of these fops at the court steer you a different course. You're a warrior of the marches, raised by a good father and then by my hand. Just remember that, and you'll keep who you are. It's the steel in the marches that keeps safe the soft gold here in the center. Gold's pretty, but it'll scarce cut butter. Don't worry about pretty, lad. Worry about your edge. The court's more dangerous to a real warrior than a thousand Weihand raiders are.”
“I'll remember that, sir.” He tried to stand taller. “I will make you proud of me.”
“Come below. I have something to give you.”
“I was going to save this until after the king knighted you, but your armor took a hard beating at Darkling Mere. And it is, after all, a lord's duty to keep his warriors looking warlike, eh?”
Neil couldn't answer. As when he had first seen Thornrath, he was struck speechless as his master unrolled the sealskin bundle to reveal the gleam of oiled steel.
Neil had worn armor since he was ten. First toughened leather, as he had been wearing that ill-fated dawn his father died, then a steel cap and byrnie with greaves, and finally the hauberk of chain he wore now, with its battered but serviceable breastplate.
But he had only dreamed of what Fail de Liery presented him—a suit of lord's plate, articulated by lobstered joints. It was good, plain work, with no frills or elaborations.
It must have cost a small fortune.
“Sir Fail, this is more than I could ever dream of. How can I ever—I could never take that. Not on top of everything else.”
“It's fitted for you,” the old man said. “I had the measurements taken when your last suit of clothes was made. No one else could wear it. And as you know, I am much insulted when my gifts are refused.”
“I—” Neil grinned. “I'd never insult you, Sir Fail.”
“Do you want to try it on?”
“Saints, yes!”
Thus it was, when they passed beneath the great arch of Thornrath, Neil MeqVren stood proudly on the deck of the Saltspear, his house de Liery tabard cinched around the most perfect suit of armor ever made. He felt bright and deadly, a sword made human.
The wonders piled up. Passing through the great arch, the waters before them were parted by a high, hilly land.
“Two rivers meet here,” Fail told him. “The bloody-minded Warlock from the southeast and the Dew tumbling out of the Barghs in the north.”
“And so this island is royal Ynis itself ?”
“It is. The rivers meet five leagues ahead of us, on the other side of the island, split again, and come back together here.”
“Ynis! Then where is Eslen? Where are the rivers that flow above the land?”
“Patience, lad. It's farther east. We'll be there near sundown. But as to the rivers—you'll see.”
Ynis rose from a flat plain, a series of hills spotted with delicate, spired castles, red-shingled hamlets, fields and forest. The plain around the island was mostly fields of grain, very green. Cottages were there, and men working the fields, and strange towers with great wheels turning on them. Canals ran off from the river, some so l
ong they vanished in the hazy distance.
And indeed, Neil realized with a growing sense of excitement that he was looking down upon the landscape. Embankments had been raised along the riverside, forcing it to flow higher than the country around.
“When our ancestors fought here against the last stronghold of the Echesl, this was a plain, or so the legends say,” Sir Fail said. “Ynis was the mount they raised for their castle. But after their defeat, and the castle Eslen was founded in its place, it all sank into quagmire, marsh, all the way to the horizon. The Echesl had used some sort of sorcery to keep the water back, and with their passing, it passed, too. The people living here could have abandoned it then, found better land in the east, but they wouldn't do it. They swore to take the land back from the waters instead.”
“They found the secret of the Echesl sorcery?”
“No. They worked hard. They built dikes. They made these pumps you see, pushed by the winds, to drain away the water. Two thousand years of slow, hard battle with the waves, but you see the result.” He laid a hand on Neil's shoulder.
“So, you see, men did this, too.”
And finally, sailing above the land like characters in a phay story, they hove in sight of Eslen of the three walls.
On the highest hill stood the castle, with its eight towers of chalk-white stone bloodied by twilight, long pennants fluttering black against the rosy clouds. From there, the city spilled down like water poured from the top of a hill, dammed briefly by each of the concentric walls surrounding the castle but never quite contained, slate-topped waves of buildings flowing over the smaller hills until they reached the waterfront and piled against stone-faced quays and stout wooden piers. Shrouds of mist and woodsmoke lay in the low places between the hills, and candlelight already made windows into eyes here and there.
“It's all so grand,” Neil murmured. “Like an enchanted city of the Queryen, from the old tales. I'm afraid to look away, for fear it will vanish.”
“Eslen is no city of moonbeams and spider silk,” the old knight assured him. “It's real enough, you'll see. And if you think this so grand, wait until you see the court.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Oh—you'll learn about waiting, son, never doubt that.”
The Saltspear came to a quay, a sort of watery plaza surrounded with docks replete with colorful boats of every size. One stood out above the rest, a five-masted battle-queen that dwarfed the Saltspear and every other ship anchored there. Neil was admiring her when he suddenly recognized the flag she flew and instinctively reached for his sword.
Fail touched his arm. “Ney, lad. There's no call for that.”
“That's a Hanzish warship.”
“So it is. That's nothing unusual. Remember, we're at peace with Hansa and the Reiksbaurgs.”
Neil's mouth dropped open, closed, then opened again. “Peace? When they pay Weihand raiders hard silver for Liery scalps and ears, and their privateers sink our merchantmen?”
“There's the real world,” Fail said, “and there's the court. The court says we're at peace with them. So don't you go pulling steel if you see a Reiksbaurg, and keep your tongue still, you hear?”
Neil felt as if he'd swallowed something unpleasant. “I hear, sir.”
Even as they docked, darkness dropped like an ax. Neil set his foot upon the cobbles of Eslen in a most unfamiliar night.
The docks bustled with men and women half seen by lamplight. Faces came and went—beautiful, sinister, innocent, brutal—all mere impressions, appearing and vanishing like ghosts, going to and from ships, greeting and parting, slinking and carrying burdens. Gutted fish, hot tar, burning kerosene, and ripe sewage perfumed the air.
“The upper gates of the city are closed by now, so we'll be rooming at an inn,” Fail told him, as they pressed through the dockside crowd and crossed a long plaza where young girls and hard-looking women cast provocative glances at them, where blind or legless beggars crouched in shadows and wailed for assistance and children skirmished in mock combat between the legs of pedestrians and the wheels of carts.
Buildings three and four stories tall crowded at the edges of the plaza like giants crouched shoulder to shoulder, playing at knucklebones, spilling cheery light, woodsmoke, and the scent of roasting meat into the cool night air.
It was to one of these giants they made their way, proclaimed the Moonfish Inn by a gilded sign that hung over the doorway.
“Be a good lad,” Fail said, “and see our horses are stabled here. Give the hand a copper miser, no more or less, for each horse. Then change from your armor and meet me in the common room.”
“On my word, Sir Fail,” Neil told him.
The ale-and-cod pie was good—much better than the shipboard fare—but Neil hardly noticed it. He was too busy watching. Never had he seen so many strange faces and clothes or heard such a confusion of tongues. Two tables away, a group of dark-skinned men in colorful robes spoke guttural nonsense. When the serving girl brought their food, their mustached lips curled in what seemed like disgust, and they made strange signs at her back with their fingers before taking their food. Beyond them, two tables of men similar in complexion seemed to be taking turns making flamboyant speeches to one another and drinking wine in unwise haste. They wore somber doublets and bloodred hose and long, silly-looking swords.
There were peoples he recognized, too—blond-shocked Schildings, with their rough fisherman's hands and quick laughter; sea rovers from the isles of Ter-na-Fath; a knight from Hornladh and his retainers, wearing the yellow stag and five chevrons of the house MaypHal. Neil asked about that one.
“Sir Ferghus Lonceth,” Sir Fail told him.
“And him?” Neil pointed at a large man with dark red hair cut short, a neatly trimmed beard, and a sable tabard. His device was quartered—a golden lion rampant, three roses, a sword, and helm. Six men sat at his table, all with the northern look about them. Some might have passed for Weihands, and Neil took an almost instant dislike to them.
“I don't know him,” Fail admitted. “He's too young. But his device is that of the Wishilms of Gothfera.”
“Hanzish, then. From the ship.”
“Yes. Remember what I said,” the older man cautioned.
“Yes, sir.”
About that moment, one of the men from the Hornladh knight's table arrived.
“Chever Fail de Liery, my master, Sir Ferghus Lonceth, begs the quality of your company.”
“I would cherish his company,” Fail said. “We shall join you, yes?”
“Is it not more meet that my master joins you? After all, in seniority and fame, you are most certainly first, and entitled to the board of your choosing.”
“That may be so, lad,” Fail replied. “But there's only two of us and eight of you, and you have the more room at your table. Seniority is all well and good, but in the inn, let us be practical, yes?” He rose, then turned to Neil. “Neil, be a good lad and invite the Wishilm knight to join us.”
“Sir,” the Hornladh squire said, “I invited him on behalf of my own master, and he did disdain the invitation.”
“And he may disdain mine. But it shall not be said that I lacked the hospitality to invite him,” Fail replied.
Neil nodded, and walked to the Hanzish knights' table.
When he arrived, he stood there politely for a moment or two, but they all ignored him, laughing and joking in their own language. Finally, Neil cleared his throat.
“Pardon me,” he said, in Hanzish.
“By Tyw! It can speak!” one of the squires said, a giant of a fellow with a broken nose. He turned devil-filled blue eyes toward Neil. “I'll have another pint of ale, wench, and be quick!”
They all laughed at that.
Neil breathed slowly and smiled. “My master, Sir Fail de Liery, requests the quality of your presence.”
“Fail de Liery,” the Hanzish knight suddenly mused. “I don't know any such knight. There is a doddering old man by that name, but I'm quite s
ure he was never a knight. You, boy. What do you do for him?”
“I'm his squire,” Neil said evenly. “And if you have not heard the fame of Sir Fail de Liery, you have no ears for the hearing, or wits to hold what you hear.”
“Master! That sounded like an insult,” one of the Hanzish squires exclaimed.
“Did it?” Wishilm said. “It sounded to me like the fart of a cock-a-roach.”
Blue-eyes wagged a finger at him. “My master will not dirty his hands with you, I assure you. He fights only worthy knights, which it is plain you are not. Your insults are meaningless to him.”
“But not to us,” another of the Hansans put in.
“I have promised my master I shall not draw steel, nor disrupt the hospitality of this house,” Neil told him.
“This man is a coward!” the fellow bellowed, loudly enough to stop conversation all around the common room of the inn.
Neil felt a sort of trembling in his hands. “I have made you an invitation, and you have not accepted it. Our conversation is done.” He turned and walked toward where his master and the Hornladh knight sat.
“Don't walk away from me, you!”
Neil ignored him.
“Well done, lad,” Sir Fail told him, offering him a place on the bench next to him. “It would be shame on the both of us were you to brawl in a public house.”
“I would never shame you, Sir Fail.”
“Let me introduce you. Sir Ferghus Lonceth, this is my protégé, Neil MeqVren.”
Lonceth clasped his hand. “I took him for your son, sir! Is he not?”
“He is like a son to me, but no, I cannot claim that honor. His father was a warrior in my service.”
“It's good t'meet you,” Sir Ferghus said, still gripping Neil's hand. “MeqVren. I'm afraid I don't know that house. Are they allied with the clan Fienjeln?”
“No, sir. My clan has no house.”
An instant of silence followed that, as they politely struggled with the concept of a squire with no birth claim to knighthood.
“Well,” Sir Ferghus said, breaking the silence. “You are most welcome in our company. The recommendation of Sir Fail de Liery is better than the blood of ten noble houses.”