And there was—there was—a Ragoni boy who caught my stirrup as we rode back into Reud to the shouts of a gathering crowd, who stared up at me with black fire in his eyes.
You were a child, and so was I—
Ten. I was ten. He would have been a year older. Why was he in Reud? Not fostering in my father’s household. I’d have seen him before. This was the only time, I was certain. An embassage trip with his father, perhaps?
—but not so much a child I might not vow within my heart: ‘this one, when I am grown, this one and no other. And if not this one, no other.’
I have kept this promise. What appeal had the pale ladies of Valenna after I had seen the fierce princess of Bruster?
I was clumsy in Rothbury. I knew you thought I spoke in ill-spirited jest. I had given up hope of laying my suit before you. I had denied my wishes at my king’s command. When I saw my moment all unlooked-for, I ran hard and sprawled like a month-old pup.
I ask now, in all solemnity, and if you tell me no I will not trouble you again. Grant me leave to court the princess of Bruster, whom the years have shown more magnificent than my child’s mind guessed, or tell me in kindly honesty you have no room in your heart to hear me.
I sat, letting the scroll curl in my hands.
Francis had never spoken like this.
But how to answer...that would require more than a moment’s thought. How different my life might have been, if Philip had allowed Orlo’s suit and my father accepted it. It was bitter to think that those terrible years with Francis might never have been. There was no promise that we would have been happy, Orlo and I. He could have made a princess in his mind that I never was and could not be. But we might have fit well enough. We might yet, perhaps, learn a little about what had been lost, and find what could be still found.
At last I rolled the sheet, tucking the letter gently back into my belt pouch.
***
I saw Hal at breakfast the next morning but only in passing. He was up early and was scraping up the last of his oatmeal when I entered the comedor.
“Magistre Boland ‘found’ the charter last night,” he whispered, rising from the bench. “Today is almost certainly our last day in Vere. Have you found anything?”
I gave him the shallowest of nods.
“Later, then,” he said, more normally.
“At the evening meal, perhaps,” I said. “‘Have a good day among the books.’”
“‘It is always a good day among books,’” he said, smiling. I saw more than one head turn to stare as he gave the correct response, and held in a chuckle, knowing he meant to divert their interest into wondering how he’d learned to read, let alone elements of Vere’s workings.
***
Doctore Orsenius left me at the Pedagno’s door. I knocked. When the Pedagno invited me to enter, I opened the door and stepped inside.
He sat at the work table, rivulets of tears etching both cheeks. I ran to his side. “What is it? Are you in pain?”
Both hands covered his face. I put my arms around his shoulders, rocking as he shook, asking no more questions. Not yet.
“I found it,” he rasped, later.
“Found what?”
He shook his head, pushing a book towards me. “Read. Just read.”
I sat, clutching one of his hands as I bent over the book:
Today we commemorate the one hundredth year since the destruction of Vere. To any eyes our new city exceeds the first so extravagantly an outsider might wonder why we yet mourn the elder. We delayed the completion of the final building that we might set the last stone today, and honor the lost while celebrating the new.
If it were only the city that had been lost, we would not mourn. The attack caused us to reconsider our site, and we determined to rebuild further inland, unseen from the shore, for greater safety. The powers of the earth forbid such a crime might be considered again. But it might. We decided we would do well to be wary.
But it was not the city alone. The marauding Farente stole books, all our library they could lay their hands on. For the books, or for their decorated covers? We pray the books were not thrown overboard as soon as the gold and jewels could be ripped free. Better the books be preserved somewhere, even if not in Vere, than destroyed.
The loss is bitter. Irreplaceably precious manuscripts, gone. Our oldest copy of the Founder’s vita. Our only copy of a map of the lands to the east, as well as the adventurer Broun’s account of his travels there. We have no other source of information about Sera Serdent, Carlomunde, or Celladorn now their ships no longer stop at Lastland. Our copy of the Rule of Vere, written in Cynan Maccus’ own hand.
We have survived. We have rebuilt. We have begun again to create, as the Founder bid, the greatest collection of knowledge the world has ever seen. But we will never have our stolen books again. And so we place the final stone of our new home, and mourn the manuscripts that will never reside within it.
I swiped the heels of my hands across my cheeks. No wonder the most precious books in Vere were kept hidden. The ruins at the shore...they were the remnants of the first Vere, sacked and burned. By marauders —
I sucked air. My grip tightened on the Pedagno’s hand. I saw again three chests. Francis opened them, making a mocking flourish. Each was full of books so old their white leather bindings had gone brown. “It was—it was Ferrant. They razed the city. They stole the books. Mostly likely whatever small treasures Vere had as well. They still have them. Or at least some of them.”
His head whipped up. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve seen them.”
Hope faded from his face. “Then the book the passage speaks of, a description of the countries of the east, a map...they are gone?”
“I don’t know.” Shame burned my cheeks so hot I felt the tears drying. “Francis forbade me to read them. I obeyed. I wanted to be a good wife to him, a good queen.” I wrenched my hand away, turning in my chair. “We are unprepared for the Saradenian danger because I did as Francis commanded. Compliant. Weak. If I had defied him, we would already know what was in that book.”
His hands grasped my shoulders and shook. “Think, Maudlin. How would you have read it? You did not know Old Valenian then.”
“I—I might have—”
“We each have enough burdens in this world without seizing one that does not rightly belong to us.” He shook me again. “This is not yours. Do you hear me? But...you have to return there. If there’s a chance Ferrant has that book, you must go.”
He was right. There was no evading that truth, unpleasant as it was. “Hal is working on the Clerk’s Charter today. We should leave,” I swallowed, “tomorrow. To Bruster, to deliver the letter. Then to Elbany, to apprise the Roth of what has happened. And then, if he concurs—”
“You know he will.”
“—to Ferrant.”
He touched my arm. “Francis can do no worse to you than he already has. You will survive him again, and be stronger for it.”
I took a deep breath. “I am sorry to leave you.”
“We can do no more than we are able, Alumna. Sometimes it is enough. Sometimes it isn’t.”
“Shall I see you in the morning, before I leave?”
He shook his head. “Say farewell this evening, and start anew tomorrow.”
I did not like it but I bowed my head.
Our oldest copy of the Founder’s vita...
“Pedagno,” I said. “Ferrant has many books. Three chests, full to the brim. But some...they have lost or let go.”
He looked at me, his head slowly shaking his question.
“I think I have one of them. One mentioned in the passage.” I brought it from my pack. “This came to me while I was in Ragonne.”
He unwrapped the cloak, sighing when the golden book came into view. “This is...”
“The vita of Cynan Maccus. It might be the stolen one. It’s certainly very old.”
His hand splayed on the cover. “It might be. Ferrant may have l
ost or sold some of the books. You still have to go.”
“I know.” I paused. “That book was given to me as a gift for the Roth. I have to take it when I leave.”
He looked sad but unsurprised. “Someday, perhaps, it will return to Vere.” He lifted the cover. “I have seen it. That is enough.” At the sight of the purple parchment he gave a wispy exhalation. “Ah!” He bent over the book, then looked up. “Let us spend our day as we meant. Reading. I started early, and look how much I learned already.” He aimed for a lighter tone, and nearly achieved it.
I set a book before me and opened it, but it was a long while before I could bring words into focus.
Book III
Chapter I
I sat in the boat, watching but not seeing the backs of the slaves as they rowed. Then I bent my neck, and read the Verune charter again.
“Anything?” Hal said when I looked up.
“No. As you thought.”
“I would rather have been wrong.”
During the ride from Vere to the port, we had at last had a chance to talk: the charters he had read and copied, without discovering anything to help the Pedagno. What I’d found. What the Pedagno had found. Nothing to help the Pedagno. Perhaps something to aid our own quest. Not something pleasant. But I had always known it would be Ferrant in the end.
“So we go to Ferrant next,” Hal said.
“Soon,” I said. “Bruster, then Rothbury. Then Ferrant.”
He gave a sympathetic grunt but said nothing.
I rolled the charter, not looking at it, and passed it to him. I should not have hoped so fervently I’d find something he had not. He was as careful a reader and thoughtful a scholar as any Vere-trained clerk. I’d let my wishes cloud my thinking. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest. I could not afford to do so again. Not in Bruster. Not in Ferrant.
At last my eyes began to see what lay before me, and I turned my gaze to the sea.
“We’re further than I would have supposed so soon,” I said.
Hal scanned the water, his eyes narrowing. “We’ve caught the current. I would guess they’ll be stowing the oars soon.”
As if Odulan had heard him, the order boomed from stern to bow. The slaves pulled in their oars, shaven heads bobbing like apples in a water barrel. Some returned to their thwarts, while others raised the sail.
“They keep no slaves in Ragonne—” Hal began.
“No,” I snapped. “Warriors captured in battle but not rich enough to pay ransom are simply killed. In Bruster, we offer such men a way to redeem their honor. Ten years’ service is better than a slit throat.” I shot him a fierce sidelong glance. “Our boat slaves are better placed than some Ragoni servants. Warriors do not mistreat slaves, lest fate be tempted to change their places.”
He held up his hands. “I meant no offense. I was going to say, as you pointed out, that while Ragonne has no ‘slaves’, the difference from a servant’s outlook is not as wide as might be supposed.”
“I apologize. I should not have assumed the worst.” I sighed. The practice of curbing one’s temper, always trying to bolt like a high-strung horse, was weary work. It waited until you were tired, or anxious, or distracted, like a stubborn, cunning stallion feeling the reins slacken in your hands, and leaped. “We will be to Reud sooner than I thought.”
“Ah,” he said, and that small sound seemed to encompass all, as if he did indeed know what it was like to be coming home for the first time in six years, both hands spilling over with troubles to lay before my father. Saradena’s threat. Upheaval in Vere. Philip’s plan. Why Bruster’s letter had been delayed. What I’d found about Saradena. What little I’d found. The need to return to Ferrant.
“I only ever bring him turmoil and disruption.” I rubbed the ridge in the bone in the underside of my left forearm, the nearly-forgotten relic of a foiled attack that Orlo’s letter had reminded me of. One of the assailants had caught me with the flat of his sword and broken my arm. Fortunately. If the edge had been turned, he’d have taken my arm off just below the elbow. At first the healing arm had itched, so I’d rubbed at it, and it became a habit. Until Francis objected that the gesture made me look as if I had lice. Now, on my way back to Reud, I found I could not help but chafe at the long-ignored scar. Fitting, perhaps. “Rejection and scorn from Francis. Upheaval in Vere. Rumor of war from elsewhere.”
“I had heard that Bruster enjoyed naught but peace except for you,” he said dryly.
I let one corner of my lip curl in mock grievance. “And I have a letter I want to send, but it will occasion questions.”
“Ah,” he said again, but now amusement filled the little word, and I gave him the exaggerated mock scowl he’d earned.
***
I had written a hasty response to Orlo, making no promises but giving him leave to press his suit. But I doubted a letter sent from Vere in its current situation could be relied upon to be sent promptly and safely. I did not care to have this one lost.
The burdens I was bringing home should have been enough to busy my thoughts, but as the waves slipped by I found my mind would not bide in the current tangles, dreadful as they were. The clustered islands of Bruster had begun to rise from the sea.
“What has caught your notice?” Hal asked.
I pointed. “Bruster.”
He shaded his eyes. “The smudges on the horizon, scarcely distinguishable from the waves?”
“Watch,” I said.
The slaves rowed, and the clustered islands grew like afternoon shadows. Bruster, the largest, sat before the ship, Solud to its right. Visible between them, further west, lay Eban. More westerly and south of Bruster, was Verun, obscured in part by the small spot that was Punlan, a holding of Verun but more curse than blessing—small, rocky even by Brusterian standards, barely habitable.
“I see them now,” he said.
I sighed. Soon I would be able to discern the black mountain and Reud, chief city of Bruster, the hold of the High King, who sat the throne of Bruster like a skittish horse and coerced his under-kings to his lordship.
He looked at me. “Do you wish to return? Or dread it?”
“Both, I think.” The Black Keep was not yet apparent even as a mote but I saw it clearly, remembering when I’d seen it last. I’d looked back, once, as the boat started for Vere. I’d left in bitter shame—and with bitter words—certain my father and brothers desired my departure, or, better, my death, to ease their humiliation. I no longer believed so. But I had left in anger, and stayed away and silent for long years. I pressed a tight fist against my lips. I might find cold welcome, and well-earned.
“Look.” Hal’s voice went reverent as the sun-splattered sides of the black mountain came into view.
I whispered its name in Brusterian. Valenian did not serve its dread beauty. Tallest in Bruster. In the known world, perhaps. From a distance, the jagged mass of the mountain gleamed solid black. Closer, it revealed itself to be speckled with gray flecks, and, rarely, white and brown. Perhaps my forebears were drawn by its strangeness to build their hold there, but the superb defensive position it offered was more likely.
“Look,” he said again as the boat approached the inward curve of the island, and now his tone held surprise. “A city.”
“The city,” I said. “Our city. Reud.” I waited, knowing what would come next.
“Such a large city…I never heard Reud was so—wait…how did they build houses there?”
I smiled. “Watch,” I said again.
From afar it appeared as if buildings ringed the base of the mountain. But as we approached, it became clear that the city lay only to the right. The house-like shapes on the left were rocks, extending to and into the water, monstrous boulders of the same stone as the mountain.
At last his breath caught, and I knew he saw. The scattered black blocks like a shadow of the city made solid. “That is…very striking.”
“Everything about the black mountain is striking.” We were still too distant to se
e separate buildings but I knew what lay along the black sand shore and beyond. “If we’re unlucky, we will see bodies rotting on the walls of the Black Keep. If we’re lucky, we’ll see the shipbuilders at work instead.”
“Will we land near the shipyard?” He leaned forward, as if to see better. “I’ve always wondered why only Bruster builds ships.”
“Don’t you know?” I grinned. “We alone are mad enough to sail waters peppered with more rocks than acorns on a forest floor in autumn.”
“Perhaps,” he said, not turning towards me, “but where do you get enough wood?”
It was a fair question. Bruster was the largest of the clustered islands and the most forested, but trees did not grow as thickly as in Elbany or Valenna. Often we had to supplement with wood brought from Lastland or traded from Elbany. “With great care. In Bruster, peat is burned. Wood is fashioned,” I said, guessing he most likely had not meant to ask a question that could only be answered with a lengthy description of Bruster’s trading relationships and vassalage duties.
We left the current as the boat turned, moving into the bay. At Odulan’s orders the boat slaves lowered the sail and took up their oars. Muscles played beneath their sun-whitened shirts as they drew us in. Black sand glinted mutedly among the shipyard but lower, wave-wet, it shone. To enemy eyes, it must be an ominous sight: the craggy mountain, its teeth lying at its feet and spilling into the inrolling tide. The Black Keep crouched in a niche carved into the mountain’s flank, the castle itself built of the removed stone.
“The Black Keep of Bruster,” Hal said, “perched upon the black mountain of Bruster. Is there a more famous stronghold in the world?”
“It is a warrior’s castle,” I said, gratified by his recognition of its eminence. “Beauty or comfort came to it by accident or addition in later years.” Thinking of attack, and defense, and loss, I glanced at my oiled leather bag, remembering the books within, and those stolen from the first Vere by Ferrant.
Homegoing (The Tall Ships of Saradena Book 1) Page 34