I only ever made the one but was happy to stand there, with spurs upon my collars, sounding perfectly mad. Princes did not practice a craft. The trio was baffled, and I stood there with my hands upon my hips daring them to argue.
The silence that followed was glorious.
The nolumari frowned so profoundly I worried his drooping face would fall right off. The envoy handed back the bow as though it were a flaming snake.
They waited, hoping perhaps that I would say more. I disappointed them with a patient smile. They started back down.
From the stairway the envoy tried a parting shot. “I will be back later this spring to inspect the army you raise. Make it a proper one.”
The hell you will.
Dekay waved his counterparts down and insisted the militia precede him as well. When he was the last, he stepped in front of me. “My lord, a word away from the rest.”
I gave the man a dark look. “This is as alone as you will ever be with me, sir. If you have a message, you will get no other chance.”
He looked at Selt and my greencoats, as if judging whether he dared speak in front of them. He said, “Minister Sikhek wishes the Vesteal to know that he means them no ill. He offers a truce.”
“Pardon?” I said—struggling to contain my surprise. “Are you well?”
Dekay smiled. “Barok Vesteal, you have few allies in Zoviya, and this season’s chaos will soon be over. You will have more to contend with than amateur assassins and petty endeavors. Do not discount this offer. You must know or must learn it quickly that there are Hessier that Sikhek does not control. The ones who attacked you were not sent by him, and he hopes that you accept his apology for any harm they did to you or those under your protection. He also wishes you to know that you will see no one else loyal to him in Enhedu as long as you refrain from doing any further damage to the Ministry or Conservancy.”
“And will you withdraw those already here?”
“You have uncovered other Hessier?” Dekay asked with surprise and alarm. “Describe them.”
His urgency reminded me of Kyoden. Dekay knew the truth of the world. I decided to trust him so far as he could help me.
“Not Hessier. Something else. People able to summon the Shadow. We have killed one. There is at least one more.”
Dekay’s entire being seemed to deflate. He looked suddenly very old and tired. “They are called thralls. They are made with a magic that binds the Shadow to the soul. The result is complete obedience. The ones that you struggle against answer to the Ashmari Hessier from the Bunda-Hith—Hessier made across the great oceans by the Ashod priests of the Kingdoms of the East. The Ashmari are in Bessradi and mean to kill Sikhek. They have already eliminated most of Sikhek’s thralls. If they already have thralls in Enhedu, then you are in terrible danger. They will harvest your family for your bones and blood.”
“I have killed Hessier. I will kill more, regardless of who made them.”
“You cannot resist them. They cannot be detected as easily as those you have killed. I cannot sense them. Sikhek has great difficulty sensing them. Do not trifle with this. Tell the Vesteal to spread themselves out, go into hiding, and survive. The world will be lost without them. And for the love of the Spirit of the Earth, leave Sikhek alone so that he may deal with the Ashmari. Do you understand?”
“Liar. Sikhek serves the Shadow.”
“Prince,” he said. “Upon the White Mother, I pledge to you that Sikhek is a servant of the Earth and there is nothing he desires more than the preservation and success of your family. He offers a truce.”
“Tell him I refuse.”
“Lord Prince?” Dekay said in shock.
“He murdered and enslaved Edonia. He hunted my family. It was the Chaukai that preserved us, not some measure of Sikhek’s mercy. I believe he sent you here out of desperation. I believe we have dealt him a blow from which he struggles to recover. I believe Sikhek sits in the very center of the darkness and would say anything to draw me out. I offer him only this,” I said, took hold of Dekay by his belt and collar robes, and flung him over the battlement.
“Barok,” Selt shouted. “Don’t!”
“I’ll see you in the ice,” I shouted as he fell.
A soft and sublime blue light began to shine from him. His descent slowed, and when he struck the stone it was not with the great crunch of bone and splatter of blood I’d hoped. He stood instead, and began to limp his way toward the gates.
“Great Mother,” Selt exclaimed.
I turned away and sat heavily against the battlement. Doubt churned my guts for a long moment, and I nearly threw up on myself. Selt sat down next to me. I asked him, “He’s not a servant of the Earth, is he?”
Selt was exasperated and unable to answer for a long moment. He gathered himself before I did. “Our attack upon Bessradi may have been a mistake.”
“I do not believe that,” I replied, but without much conviction.
One of the Chaukai asked, “Should we go after him?”
I started to say yes, but was torn. Selt told them no.
He asked me, “Are we better off now, or worse?”
The question helped me focus. I stood and helped him up. “It is too late to dwell upon it. We know we have another enemy now, and Zoviya seems all the weaker for being between them and us.”
“There cannot truly be an entire other land across the sea, can there?”
“A distant land of peoples we know nothing of us easier to comprehend than a man who can survive being thrown from a roof. Come,” I said. “Let’s get back to work. We’ve a tithe and stipend to spend. It may just be enough to pay for everything on the books.”
Selt could not help but think his way through the calculation. “Not much left over, I would think. It would be a risk to approve it all.”
“You gather the scribes, I’ll roust the coins. And send word to Almidi. I need to speak with Regent Oklas.”
We met in the great hall, and the work began at once.
28
Madam Dia Yentif
Errati Saristrava
A few days had passed, but not enough for Barok’s next round of planning to find a natural pause, nor for me to hear if Aden and the rest of the escaped slaves had made it into the hills of Trace. It was just as well. I was no closer to a plan for how to get them safely to Enhedu without anyone knowing. I had endless schemes for how to spread them out into Enhedu’s remote villages, but getting a thousand slaves over the mountain without anyone seeing them was not possible.
I managed the slimmest selfish smile, despite my failure and my worsening morning sickness. Thell had come for a visit, and I missed him terribly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard his name or seen his face. I pushed my untouched breakfast aside and started down. Moving was a torture, but there was no amount of misery that could keep me from a walk in the sunshine with my old friend.
He came in through the curtain wall gate and surprised me utterly by leading in a beautiful Fell Pony mare. He handed me her lead.
“What is her name?” I asked him. “Is she for me?”
“Jescia is the name she came with. She was Clever’s favorite. She’s with foal.”
“Ohh, how wonderful,” I said, clapped, and gave the old man a great kiss on the lips. “Marvelous.”
He blushed as he always did and scratched at his chin. “I thought you might like to walk her each morning—seeing as you can’t go outside.”
“Only if you promise to walk with us and tell me all about my friends outside.”
He gave me his arm, and the stunning mare paced behind us with a clop-clop upon the old stone.
“I changed my mind,” I said. “Tell me about you, instead. What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you at all.”
“Ohh, more of the same, more or less. The orchard loves attention, and Barok gave me all of the land between the orchard and river to train up the Akal-Fells when they start foaling this summer.”
“That’s quite a pa
tch of land. You need that much space?”
“Could use a bit more than that, actually, but we’ll make do. I’ve forty local lads up in Ojesti competing for twenty spots as my stable boys while their fathers pay off the cost of the education by clearing the land for me.”
“You scoundrel.”
“Nah. I need something closer to sixty lads and a dozen trainers to take care of 1,000 head and 300 foals. Not sure where I’ll find the trainers with every able man already a greencoat or learning a craft. I’ll be taking on all forty boys for sure.”
“Of course you will,” I said. “You’ll find the other twenty you need from the local girls, I expect?”
“I’d not …” he started to say and then caught himself. “Yes. Yes, of course. There are a number of girls—”
“And trainers, too, I expect.”
I’d embarrassed him. He should be, but after so fine a gift as the mare, I gave him an easy out. “You’ve spoken to Fleur Sahin, I imagine—asked her to find skilled horsewomen for you?”
“Sahin’s sister? Why, yes. Yes, of course. I can’t wait to hear Fleur’s recommendations,” he said with a gracious smile. I hugged his arm.
Gern and a dozen greencoats were marching toward us with a prisoner at sword point. It was Alsman Errati. His left eye was swollen shut and wildly discolored. A patchy beard had come in, which hid most of the rest of his bruises. I’d seen Errati’s men ride away without him but had not expected this to be the reason why.
“Pardon us,” Gern said. “We did not expect anyone to be in the courtyard.”
“Where are you taking him?” I asked but knew the answer.
Thell cleared his throat. Errati was looking at my stomach. He gasped and slumped as though taken by poison. Knowing Barok would soon have an heir made his death a certainty.
Gern pushed him past us. I took hold of the captain’s arm. “Wait.”
“Dia? Wait for what?”
I had no answer for him, but murder could not be our way anymore. Selt was right.
“Walk with me, Errati,” I said and handed him the mare’s lead.
The group of them gaped.
“Come,” I insisted, took his arm, and drew him through the greencoats back the way he had come. Jescia did not mind him.
“Enhedu was not what you expected,” I said.
He trembled as if waiting for a sword to be plunged between his shoulder blades was killing him.
“Give us some space, Captain,” I said. Gern took a long moment before he wisely decided that his life would be better if he obeyed me.
We walked to the sound of Jescia’s iron shoes. Clap-clap, clap-clap.
“The day you arrived, did you feel the touch of the darkness by the palisade?”
He nodded.
“You’ve felt it before. When?”
After a long moment, he said, “In Bessradi. I was on the steps of the Chancellery when two Hessier came for one of my juniors.”
“And you have felt the blue light of the healers?”
“I paid once to have my mother healed. Cost me three pieces of gold. The healer made me leave the room, but I could feel it though the door.”
“Did you pray to Bayen?”
He stopped and turned to me. “I thank you for this brief reprieve, Madam Yentif. But this is not what I want to speak of on my last day on earth.”
“Gern,” I called. “Is there a healer in your troop?”
His nod was forced.
“I want him to sing to Errati’s wounds. Now.”
The whole group, including Errati, looked ready to refuse.
“Rot your eyes, Captain. I am working to save this man’s life. Do as I say.”
The guardsman came up reluctantly. “My song is weak,” he said.
“No apologies. The Spirit of the Earth is with you now. She needs your song to be strong. You will sing with Her in your heart.”
“You are servants of Adanas,” Errati said and took his arm slowly away from me.
“Sing, guardsman,” I ordered sharply, and the lad let fly.
His song was sublime. The blue light upon his hands stole Errati’s fear, and when the singer’s hands gripped his bruised face, he slumped forward and smiled.
“Look there,” I said to him and pointed into the depths of the shadows at the base of the keep. What do you see?”
He looked but said nothing. The Shadow was there.
“And in the trees,” I said and pointed him at the sunlit top of the tall spruce beyond the west wall. “Do you see the dark eyes there?”
“Bayen, deliver me,” he said, and as the guardsman’s song failed, Errati fell to his knees.
I knelt down beside him and took hold of his hands.
“Bayen is a lie,” I said and set his hands upon my stomach. “There is only the Shadow and the Spirit of the Earth. We need you, Errati. Our child needs you. Will you join us?”
He stopped shaking and stared at my belly. He nodded his head ever so slightly, as if someone was watching. And, indeed, there was—always there was someone peering out from the darkness.
“Stand up.”
He rose with me and looked across at the greencoats. They had put away their swords.
“Will you do something for me?” I asked him. He nodded again, this time with more conviction. “Go with the captain. He is going to take you to a place where the Spirit of the Earth is strong. You are going to be given an oath and then the chance to step away from the Shadow. Will you do this?”
He wanted to believe. He looked to Gern, and the captain bowed graciously and gestured for Errati to precede him. I’d not seen Gern give way to anyone other than Barok, and the alsman did not miss the gesture.
He bowed and went.
Thell offered me his arm once more as they departed. “The outcome will likely be the same.”
“Not in the least. Even if he does not make it, struggling to live is a far better death than being murdered.”
We walked the courtyard with Jescia for a short time longer before my sickness required that I return to my bed. Thell stayed with me, but was worse at waiting than I was and got himself into trouble with Pemini by commenting on how the rabbit stew could be improved.
He was saved from wearing the rest of it when the sound of men moving through the courtyard summoned us to the window.
Gern held Errati’s limp body in his arms.
I was on the verge of tears when the captain and his men looked up at us and smiled.
He made it!
The happiness was overwhelming. Barok joined me at the window. “Who is that?”
“Your new alsman,” I said.
“Oh? Ohh! Did it the old-fashioned way? Well done. Well done, indeed.”
I kissed him for his understanding. “You leave him alone for a while,” I said, and he gave me a hurt look. “I mean it. He’s converted to the cause but won’t necessarily give up his loyalties to those he served in Bessradi. Don’t challenge him to do so, or you will lose him.”
“What would you have me do with him?”
“Let him do his job. Being your alsman is more than enough to keep him occupied. He’ll come around fast enough.”
“Right,” he said with a long slow nod.
I rewarded his decision to agree with me by taking him by the hand. It had been a long time since I was happy enough to give him a bath like I used to. He read my intention, leapt up, and followed me like a lamb.
The sleep we found after was made to order.
29
Crown Prince Evand Yentif
“Messenger, sir,” a weary guardsman said.
I was barely in the saddle and had been staring through the round sights of my visor at the high ridge we rode toward for so long that my eyes screamed when I turned and tried to blink.
We were almost back to our camp at Doctrice, forced by the mass of Hurdu behind us to ride or stand aside in the swamp. I worried dimly that Yarik would charge his Hurdu right over top of us, but his courser
s were in worse shape than my Akal-Taks. We were fools for trying the swamps on horseback—for trying it at all.
“Sir? Sir,” the guardsman said more urgently. “A messenger has arrived.”
“Word of Tanner?”
“Sir? No. He’s from the capital, bearing a message from the Exaltier.”
“From father?” I sputtered and struggled to fit a full breath into the armor Okel had required I wear. I flipped up the faceplate of the old-fashioned visored-basinet and tried to focus.
And then the man was there before me, one of my father’s messengers with an escort from Bessradi’s 1st Hemari division. He presented the letter case stiffly, waited for me to open it, and watched to make sure I read it.
8th of Spring, 1196
* * *
Crown Prince Evand,
Lord Bayen has called all men of faith to war. See yourself East with all speed and care, and in the name of righteousness, tear down the apostate lords of Havish and their false church.
* * *
Your Lord in Heaven also requires, my divine son, for you to remove from God’s Earth all the men loyal to the Ministry and its Conservancy within your reach or power, as they are in league with these criminals. You will also send back with the messenger who bore this, all of the loyal healers of Bayen in your service and vicinity. The capital requires their services.
* * *
Your Divine Master and Father,
and our God’s Sword upon this Earth,
Vall Yentif
“Do you have a reply?” the messenger asked. “Today is the 11th of Spring. I am ordered to return immediately with your response.”
My dulled mind could not summon any of the many questions the letter begged, much less fulminate a sufficient response. “Bayen’s will be done.”
The messenger huffed at me and stalked away. The man’s frustration was of a quality I had not seen in a long time. My mind wandered its way back over random-seeming moments and encounters. I daydreamed of a parade upon the Bessradi River on a warm summer day and a man who’d been even more exasperated. He was my father’s Master of Processions and had been accused of treason by my brother and hanged on the spot. Yarik had made the accusation after another of my brothers—was it Barok? Yes. Barok had challenged Yarik to a duel right there along the river boulevard while a million people watched. We’d cheered and cheered for that feisty little viper. He toyed with Yarik, though, cut him ten, maybe fifteen times, and then lost his chance to kill him when a Hemari tackled him. Oh, how much I would give to let that little shit have just another moment there upon the river.
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