They returned to the office at the end of the queen’s suite. “Settling in all right?” Hadand asked. “Do you need more Runners?”
“Not yet. I will when the new girls come for the queen’s training. Right now Inda’s and my Runners seem to bang into one another coming and going. Almost as often as all those doors.”
Hadand laughed. “Is Inda settling in? Evred keeps checking that silly ring of his, then galloping off to make sure Inda’s happy and has everything he wants. He’s like a child with a new toy.”
Another intense pang. Least said, less to mend. “Inda keeps getting lost. I forget he was never here. In the castle I mean. He said it’s a relief that Evred keeps popping in on him and showing him which way to go, but he feels stupid, like Evred’s his Runner, always having to point him the right way.”
“I think Evred likes doing it. His spirits were very low for such a long time. Not just over the many deaths in that horrible battle, but the state of the kingdom and how long it will take to build it up again. If we can. And then there was the loss of that archive up north, the one he used to copy records from. The morvende shut him out for being a warmonger. It’s completely unfair—Evred went up there to defend us—but there is no one to complain to. I’m so glad to see him smiling again.”
Tdor did not know what answer to make to that, so turned her attention to the neat stacks of paper, and the several chalk boards on the T-shaped desk. “All right, we’ve been in this room twice, and you said you’d explain the details later. If you want me taking over, how about making ‘later’ now?”
“If you’re ready, I’m ready. This is what we call the ‘Files and Piles.’ ”
Tdor listened closely, touching each pile in order to fix it in her memory.
“Tomorrow it’s yours,” Hadand finished, dropping onto a bench and rubbing her cold hands. “You’ll have to clap out the Fire Stick and take it with you if you work down in the women’s guard office. Yet again the Mage Council renewed the kingdom’s existing Fire Sticks without granting us a single extra. Again we all must make do, from king to cotter.”
Tdor just shrugged. They had exhausted the subject of the unfairness of the world’s judgment years ago.
The shutters had been pulled back, and the windows gave weak, watery light. Hadand frowned out at the wet walls and the women walking slowly along, heavy winter robes swaying just above their boot heels.
“Might I see the boys’ academy?” Tdor asked. “It’s the one place I haven’t been.”
Hadand smacked her hands on her thighs and stood up. “Now’s the time for a tour.”
A spurt of trepidation, habit from Tdor’s teen years, surprised her: the rules had been very, very strict about girls setting foot on the boys’ side. To be caught there was to be sent home in disgrace. Even Dannor hadn’t dared to test that rule.
Dannor. As she followed Hadand down the back staircase, Tdor said, “Dannor followed Inda home. Did you know that?”
“Evred told me. He and I had a bet going whether or not Inda would ever notice she was trying to turf you out of your own marriage. That’s astounding even for Dannor, thinking she could whisk away two generations of planning, like that!” Hadand snapped her fingers.
Tdor said cautiously, “She apparently thought Evred would make an exception. If she could glamour Inda into asking for it.”
“Why?” Hadand looked bemused. “Oh, because he’d won a war? Yes, that’s Dannor, all right.”
Tdor scowled at the flagstones. Here they were at Evred again. Wouldn’t it be best to tell Hadand about his passion for Inda? But if she did, what would that fix? Absolutely nothing. There are two kinds of truth: that which enlightens and that which is only cruel. “Well, maybe she’s grown a little. She accepted the wedding without any of her old tantrums and when we left, she was planning a tapestry for your mother.”
“She was always very good with drawing, I’ll say that for her.” Hadand led Tdor into the dank archway between the castle proper and the academy parade court; a party of Runners stepped out of their way, fists striking chests.
Hadand saluted back, and Tdor belatedly did. That, too, was something they seldom did at home. At Tenthen. This was now home.
Hadand paused, staring up at the mossy stones overhead. “I don’t know why I dislike the idea of Dannor at Tenthen. Why did she even stay a day? What could she be after?” She snapped her fingers. “Tdor, it’s so obvious! Why didn’t you see it? Branid is going to have a title soon! You should not have left her there.”
Tdor flushed to the hairline. “I did offer to bring her with us,” she said, but she squirmed inside, hating the defensive sound of her own voice. She pressed her lips together without uttering the “What could I have done?” that would have followed, because she knew she could have done something—if she’d given Dannor a single thought a heartbeat after their one conversation. Yet another thing she could not say: I was so distraught at leaving home—at leaving Tenthen—I had no room for anything but my own sorrow. Relief flooded her. There was something she could say. “Inda made Branid promise not to marry without your mother’s permission.”
Hadand’s face cleared. “And he’s on his way here for Convocation, well out of Dannor’s reach, so that’s all right. Mother can be trusted to send Dannor back to Tya-Vayir under guard, if necessary, at the first sign of trouble. And she does make trouble—you should hear the horrible stories about her up in Ala Larkadhe, when Hawkeye was governor there. Poor Imand! But at least she’ll be getting rid of Starand.”
“You mean Starand hasn’t ridden north to Idayago yet? And she a Jarlan in her own right?”
“I sent Tesar with a private message,” Hadand admitted. “Begging Imand to keep Starand reined at Tya-Vayir at least through New Year’s. Make her learn the duties of a Jarlan, by my command. This is why I need you, Tdor.” She rubbed her temples. “There is so much to be done! Top of my list is to find a good couple to send back with Cama as Randael and Randviar, since the only Tya-Vayir cousin left is ten and about to come here to the academy. When he leaves he’ll be the new Randael for Horsebutt. I need people who will be fair to the Idayagans, yet tough enough to keep Starand in order. Ndand Arveas will be the principal woman in the north. Between her and a strong Randviar in Idayago, we can keep the peace in the northern cities while Cama rides around keeping it in the countryside. Ndand wrote to me just a week ago that the reputation of the Arveas women has had a very strong effect.”
The thought of two hundred women and girls holding off the entire Venn invasion army for two days made Tdor go cold inside. “How do you search for such a person?” Tdor asked as they passed under the west parade court arch into the academy proper.
“Letters. Lots and lots of letters.” Hadand wrung her right hand. “Which is why it’s been taking so long. Great women have impossible husbands, or the best men have wives who don’t fit my conditions. I might have to ride out myself to interview people. So you need to learn my job yesterday.” She smiled. “Here we are. Inda’s new realm.”
So this was the academy! Tdor spun around, trying to take everything in at once. It was empty for the caretakers putting up the winter shutters on the buildings.
“The smallest boys go here.” Hadand pointed at the closest set of buildings to the castle. “We used to spy on them from one of the secret peepholes next to your own suite. Remind me to show you. I keep wondering if I should point them out to my children or leave them to be discovered.” Her forehead tensed on the word “children.” “Aldren seemed so big and terrifying then, and now—I think back—he was just a skinny boy. So unhappy. And so angry.” She gripped her elbows. “Evred’s father wanted his boys to be scholarly rulers, and Aldren just could not read. Such a small thing, but with such long consequences. Well, that and his uncle always telling him he could have anything he wanted because he was to be a king. This is where the twelve- to fourteen-year-olds live. You probably barely remember when Tanrid was that small.”
Had
and talked on, showing Tdor the empty barracks and the mess hall and the practice courts. These latter were exactly like the ones behind the castle for the girls and women, but the barracks were so different. The light had strengthened into morning by then, and Tdor was astonished at the battered wood, the smudges of fingerprints high on walls above doors, where it looked like boys would leap and smack the lintel or wall just to be doing it.
“Here’s where the cubs live. Those are the between ages.” Hadand swept her gaze past the open windows with their scarred, knife-rutted windowsills. How like boys! She took in Tdor’s wide-eyed astonishment and said wryly, “I brought Signi over here before she left. She did the spells on the buckets and baths while Evred and Inda were finishing dinner. Want to know what she said? How very, very thin is the layer of civilization. Do you think she meant we Marlovans are barbarians?”
Tdor shook her head. “No. She means all humans. Not barbarians, but . . . she thinks we are our own worst enemies. At least, the humans living on the surface. She knows so much more about history than any of us. And she included the Venn in that judgment.”
“I wonder what she’ll make of the kingdom?” Hadand said, and sobered as they passed into the private court that belonged to the horsetails, the oldest boys in the academy. Hadand frowned at the empty courtyard, the low windows with the knife-carved sills. “Evred is glad she’s gone. Not because he distrusts her, but because he thinks the Venn might want to come back. Something their commander said at the truce.”
Tdor whirled, her face blanched with dismay.
Hadand raised a hand. “Maybe not yet. But they need land. Their Rajnir is young. Not much older than us. Maybe he’ll be too busy rebuilding in the north and riding around being king to set sail our way again.”
Then we don’t fear for us, we fear for our children, Tdor thought as she looked at the heel-marked doors in the strengthening light, the battered chests and knife-blade-pocked walls. Except they won’t fear the prospect. They’ll look forward to it, just like Whipstick and the others did. That’s what Signi means, and she’s right.
But there was nothing she could do to fix it.
She and Hadand paced back, each lost in her own thoughts.
Chapter Six
THE prow of the Venn flagship Cormorant curved far above the dock, as arrogant as it was graceful, as a pair of men swung precariously about it, sanding and smoothing the figurehead. Warlike angled slants that vaguely resembled eyes dominated the prow’s contours, emphasized by the gilding that glinted in the weak light.
The shape of the head reminded Brun Durasnir more of a snake; down the neck spiraled intricate knotwork; from a distance the effect was like strange stylized feathers. The skalts insisted the odd letters were secret runes from the days of the World Before, when the ancient ships wore the carved dragon heads that were only seen illustrated in very, very old scrolls.
A third man hung over the water in a sling, adding to the carving, as was done after each voyage. She wondered if there were runes for a failed invasion.
Her cart rumbled past the prow and down the graceful curve of the gunwales. Parties of men with a ship mage were busy examining each strake; they stopped when her cart drew near and put hands together in the sign of respect. Brun only lifted one hand, then peered up at bare masts, the muscles of her face braced against the cold wind as the oxen plodded steadily down the dock, the laden cart behind Brun creaking. She was aware of the names the younger women gave her: Hatchet-Face, Drakan-Prow, and the like. Her profile never had been beautiful, and middle age had emphasized the resemblance of her nose to a blade.
She relied on her grim profile now to convey the effect of an angry, prideful woman: her hood was thrown back as she sat next to the servant who tended the oxen. She knew that she was watched from the towers, watched from the other ships. Her bare face would be construed as pride in her moral superiority as today, the first clear weather they’d had since the arrival of the fleet, she brought her husband’s personal belongings from Saeborc to the Cormorant to emphasize his being cast out of her house.
The oxen stopped, oblivious to the rain, and in silence Brun gathered the fine-woven folds of her black cloak about her, and then, with great ceremony, she picked up the small wooden box, carved with lovers’ knots, that had sat on the bench next to her.
Those watching would assume it carried her marriage band inside, plus any other jewelry her husband had given her.
She mounted the steep ramp let down by the deck crew and stalked along the companionway to the cabin at the back, the box held in her gloved hands before her.
Her husband, Stalna Hyarl Durasnir, commander of the South Fleet, stood before the whipstaff, awaiting her.
The few sailors on duty remained at a respectful distance. Durasnir opened the cabin door and stepped aside. She walked in, and he closed the door, shutting out the curious eyes around the deck, and those watching from mast and tower.
The outer cabin, with its enormous table, now bare walls, and ancillary desks, was empty. The door to his private cabin stood open, the light dim from the inward curving windows.
As soon as he shut the door behind her she cast the box onto the bed and whirled around, poised.
“No spiderwebs.” He smiled, the same pensive, almost shy smile that had caught her eye, and her heart, thirty years ago.
She flung herself into his arms. He crushed her close, his arms trembling. A sob shook her frame—their lips met in a hard, searching kiss that tasted of salt tears—and then they broke apart, breathing hard. Her throat ached.
He hugged her again, and said into her rain-dampened hair, “Fulk Ulaffa himself went over this cabin just this morning, on the pretext of delivering a letter requiring my full testimony before the council.”
“Ulaffa!” she exclaimed. He was not just one of the untouchable Yaga Krona, the king’s dags, he was the chief of Prince Rajnir’s circle.
“He is not Erkric’s man. He never was, actually, but duty forced them to work side by side until Abyarn constructed walls of distrust between all branches of the tree of service.”
So not just the military was fracturing. Not just the sea dags. The Yaga Krona itself! “I remember what you requested of me that day in Jaro. You said that Erkric might be spying on our scroll cases. And so, when I saw your code words after the invasion failed, I threw mine off a cliff as publicly as possible.”
Durasnir grinned, looking younger for a breathtaking moment. “Gossip about that got all the way back to us. As I’d hoped.”
Brun smiled grimly. “Should we be fighting?”
“Two of my ensigns are going to be drinking off duty tonight, each swearing friends to secrecy as they describe how you screamed at me about our stupid defeat by the Marlovans and hurled dishes when I attempted to defend myself.”
Her smile faded. “And so? I do not really comprehend why we must have a false parting. Say rather, how our false parting can make any difference in what you once dreaded might happen.”
“That my most loyal captains, with the best of intentions, would encourage me to take the throne? That has already happened, Brun. I will not have Venn murdering Venn in my name. In my heart I hear the skalt singing Slacfan’s Song.”
“Cracks in the Tree, Thor-hammer ambition, The winds of discord, bring the Tree down,” she whispered. “But it is not your ambition at fault.”
“Does it matter whose? The loves we should have protected will still be dead.”
She grimaced faintly. “At my age, I feel foolish saying such a thing, but people are laughing at us, Fulla.” She was astonished when he grinned, reminding her of their son Vatta, dead at sixteen. It was a punch in the heart.
“I want them to,” he said.
She had to pause and breathe deeply, in order to school her emotions. “I just do not see how making us figures of mockery wards Rainorec—” She tipped her head. “No, not true. Is it this, if your hot-headed captains hear gossip making you a figure of fun, they cannot use y
ou as a banner to rally behind? But why is such a thing happening at all? Why should the prince be blamed for the defeat when he was not in command? I wish you had told me more before you left Ymar.”
“But we were spied on so much. Then there was the . . . vagueness of my guesses. At the time, I just heard whispers about Rajnir’s foolishness in making friends with that repellent Count Wafri. His growing tastes for the frivolousness of Ymaran entertainments. I did not want our captains trying to force me into opposition to him—especially if something were to go amiss during our invasion.”
“You expected to be driven away by the Marlovans?”
“No. I thought we would succeed. But there were other aspects that disturbed me, and Brun, I was right. The truth is still not proved, but I fear it is worse, far worse, than I had ever guessed at the darkest moments.” He kissed her hard, then let her go. “Brun, much as I want you, and have every day since we sailed from Ymar to that accursed invasion, no one will believe you are casting me to the shore if they don’t see that door open as soon as my belongings are stowed below.”
“What is to be done?”
“For now, we have to maintain the pose of parting, while you demand explanations for the invasion’s failure—shout about how foolish our captains were to lose—get the women to make a noise, demanding accountings of all our captains. I trust by the time everyone is tired of it, we will know . . .” He frowned sightlessly at gilt carving around the bulkheads.
“Fulla! What? Please tell me.”
He attention snapped back to her. “When I know the truth, you will be the first. Speaking of trouble. I counted only ten Houses on the walls, the day of our arrival. And ten in the Hall for Frasadeng.”
“Loc and Hadna Houses tried to take the kingship. The bones of the young men lie atop Sinnaborc, picked clean after they endured the blood eagle. And the rest of the primary families are in thrall to First Tower until the new king is crowned and decides whether to show mercy or justice.”
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