King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  “How many mouths from the truth?” he asked, not moving.

  She said, “Three, including me.”

  “For that I need to know exactly who spoke to whom,” he said. He much preferred news that she overheard herself.

  “I was told yesterday in conversation with the caravan guide who accompanied the millwheel maker just arrived to help set up our new mill.” She added stiffly, “He’s my sister’s boy’s mate, been running caravans for ten years. He dropped off the millwheeler up at Dockside Circle, to begin working on the kingpin today. The millwheeler saw Elgar himself. He described him clearly enough for me to be certain that he’s the same one who was here two years ago: short, scarred face, brown hair. Rubies in hoops through his earlobes, pirate style. The Jarl family all used his real name, not Elgar. He’s a Marlovan, all right. Probably a murderer, just like they all said years ago.”

  She let her voice show her affront. Selling information she might be doing, but it was for the greater cause, and so what if it also netted her money? After the last few years, a person had a right to tuck some extra behind a brick for the next time either Marlovans or pirates burned the harbor down to the ground, and this Elgar fellow was both.

  Rider said nothing, just handed her the amount for thirdhand news. Then he picked up his cloak, shook it out, and swirled it around him as he stepped out into the rain.

  Her shoulders twitched with ill-humor as she tucked her coins into her belt purse. She began counting to one hundred. They must never be seen walking together, and there was plenty of time yet before the Marlovan patrollers would be this way.

  A thump and a thud against the outer wall startled the guild mistress out of her count, but she shrugged, figuring Rider had slipped on the stones and caught himself against the wall. After all, there had never been the slightest problem in the eight years she’d been meeting these . . . riders.

  She stamped her shoes well to rid them of mud before she started toward the door, beyond which rain sheeted steadily.

  She started violently as three tall figures loomed in the doorway.

  She backed inside the stable. The foremost figure strolled in at a languid pace, removed his cloak with an elegant air, and tossed it, dripping, over the bare frame of a loose box.

  “Mardric.” Fear gave way to exasperation. She loathed Skandar Mardric, head of the Idayagan and Olaran Resistance. “What are you doing here?”

  With him was a tall, massive Olaran ironmonger, who rarely spoke but often attended Mardric when he met with harbor leaders. The other was a young rope maker, big ears standing out from his tangled curly hair. She knew he ran messages. Together they seemed oddly . . . purposeful.

  Mardric lounged against a roof support.

  “Well?” she demanded, perching primly on the edge of the trough where Rider had sat, her rigid posture expressive of indignation. “I am very busy. By the first bell I am expected to meet with the harbormaster.”

  Mardric said, “You have been complaining about me.” His heavy-lidded eyes, usually so mocking and sleepy-looking, were wide and direct.

  “Yes,” she retorted, determined to maintain her authority. Mardric and his “resistance,” what a joke! She sat even more upright, voice tart with righteous anger. “You go behind everyone’s backs. You sleep with anyone, man or woman, in order to winnow out their secrets. But do you do anything useful with that information? No. We are still under the rule of the Marlovans, and you’ve accomplished precisely nothing, except collect large sums from who knows how many cities, for your ‘expenses.’ Which you have never justified, anymore than you have your actions.”

  She stopped. He made a wide gesture, almost a courtly bow. “Go on.”

  “Two of my neighbors saw you row out to talk to those pirates the winter the old Marlovan king was killed.” She squared her shoulders. “Why, to tell the truth, we all thought you were spying for the Marlovans. After all, you never did manage to kill that Prince Evred, despite everyone telling you the Ala Larkadhe castle is honeycombed with secret ways, and two people I personally spoke with said they showed your people ways in.”

  “Ye-es,” Mardric drawled. “And every one of them was caught. The Marlovan prince, in his arrogance, let my own brother go free. They, it seems, don’t take us any more seriously than you do. Go on.”

  “Go on? I have work to do, even if you don’t.”

  “Your work right now is to defend your life,” Mardric drawled, then feigned surprise. “Oh, I didn’t say? My mistake. I thought you heard your Venn friend get his final judgment.”

  He turned a hand outward in a lazy gesture. The ironmonger tromped out the stable door, then dragged someone in by his mud-covered heels. Fear flowed cold and terrible along the guild mistress’ nerves as the rest of Rider’s lanky form bumped lifelessly in, sodden cape last. The front of his tunic was dark, soaked with blood where he’d been knifed in the heart.

  Mardric said, “Leave him there.”

  The ironmonger dropped Rider’s heels.

  Mardric laced his fingers together as he regarded the guild mistress. “It’s true that the Marlovan prince—now their king, despite all our efforts—yet lives. But that’s only because no one can get into his citadel in Choraed Hesea. If the word you yourself just sold to the Venn, or tried to—Zek, get the money, would you?—is true, no doubt he’ll soon be back up here at the head of an army. The question is, why did you sell that information to the Venn?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She ignored Zek’s outstretched hand and batted mud off her cape, outrage and fear evident in the twitches of her shoulders, the jiggles of the flesh at her jawline. “The only ones strong enough to fight the Marlovans are the Venn.”

  Zek turned to Mardric, who made another lazy gesture as he said, “Yes. And if they win, what do we get? Yet another overlord.”

  She extended her finger, saw it tremble, and tucked her hand into her armpit. “He promised that the Venn only want to defend against the Marlovans before they get strong enough to launch northward and attack across the sea. We’ve all experienced how no one can stop them. It takes military people to stop military people. The Venn live far away, so once they’ve made sure their borders are safe, they will go home again. I was promised.”

  Mardric sighed. “Are you really that stupid, or is it just greed? Did you really believe that any great power comes to your home soil just to defend you? Without a price?”

  The rain had lifted abruptly, leaving the sound of drips and splashes outside. At a gesture from Mardric, Zek left to do a perimeter prowl—something Rider and the guild mistress had neglected, he thinking she had, and she having relaxed her vigilance years ago.

  The guild mistress, authority for so many years—an authority she had worked hard for, and gloried in to the extent that she hadn’t used her own name for twenty-five of those years—turned increasingly horrified eyes from Mardric to the ironmonger. The latter would not meet her gaze.

  Mardric smiled. “You have been selling information to the Venn for years now. I finally tracked you down. Thought it was a pirate spy at first, or a Marlovan, or a thief or dockside rat, but it was you. I didn’t believe it. Had to hear it myself. Not thirdhand, not even secondhand. You, an Olaran. With pride of rank.” His teeth showed on the last word.

  “I told you why. It’s so they can fight the Marlovans.” Her voice shook.

  “They are going to fight the Marlovans anyway.” Mardric waved a hand to and fro. “If you had told us about your spy contact five years ago—two years ago—we could have included you in the plans.”

  “You talked of big plans, but no one ever saw anything actually happen,” she retorted. “I’m not the only one who thought you were just a cheat, taking good money as an excuse to seduce those foreign boys and girls if they were young and pretty enough. I remember quite well, your going on about how pretty those pirates were!” She made a spitting motion to the side.

  “Spying,” Mardric said softly, “means idle listening, waiting, t
alking in order to provoke more talk. It means smiling. It means flattering. The fun part is the seducing. My sister,” he said gently, “has a very important one by the prick right now.” He waited, and when she didn’t answer, he went on, “And then, all at once, when they are relaxed, you strike.” He dusted his fingertips together. “Gone!” And dropped his hands. “Your information is correct. We had an eyewitness see Elgar on the royal road. He followed him to their city and stayed long enough to see their mighty garrison preparing for imminent departure. My witness just reached us yesterday.”

  Zek came back in, stamping mud off his feet. Mardric looked a question. Zek waggled his hands.

  The guild mistress tried to find a response—disbelief—attack—anything to fend off the sense of menace exuding from these men she’d considered fools.

  “Elgar the Fox is, no doubt, on his way with an army,” Mardric said. “He will fight the Venn, and who knows, maybe he’ll even win, because the Venn are not going to get any help from Olarans or Idayagans. We’re here to make sure of that.”

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “Because you decided what was best for everyone.” Mardric’s voice sharpened. “You worked against us as well as against the Marlovans. Well, just so you know. The Marlovans can win, but it won’t do them much good because their king will be dead. He has no heir, which means that if they beat the Venn they’ll be fighting each other for their throne. And they’ll leave us alone. If they don’t win, they’ll fight the Venn to the last man, and still leave us alone.”

  She said poisonously, “Who is going to kill their king? You?”

  “I’ve had plenty of practice of late, dispatching all the Venn spies I just mentioned. Spies we spent years locating. And watching. Talking to. Seducing, even, until one day—one night, actually—on the pillow, one let something slip: the invasion everyone has talked about for years is happening right now.”

  She licked her dry lips. “But—”

  Mardric lifted a hand, turned over. “Strange. We say ‘he has blood on his hands’ but mine are clean. That is, blood washes off. Blood causes guilt only when you feel guilty. I have to confess I really enjoyed killing those spies. Most put up a good fight. I like that in a relationship.” His teeth showed. “Even one as brief as these must be.”

  “I did everything I did to protect Lindeth,” she stated, now trembling all over, and no longer trying to hide it.

  Zek and the ironmonger had stepped closer, both with closed faces, neither letting his gaze touch hers.

  “No, you did everything you did to make money, and gain secret authority, and oh, yes, to strike at the Marlovans, but your strike wasn’t an important enough reason for you to share information with us. Well, despite you, the Venn are no longer getting help. From anyone.” He glanced away, grimacing. “And while I enjoy fighting tough young men who’ve been trained to kill people like me—” His hand flicked out in a gesture that she didn’t understand until the garrote had whipped round her skinny old neck.

  The ironmonger’s muscles bunched.

  “—I take no pleasure in killing old women,” Mardric finished on a sigh. “Thanks, Retham. I hated her, she hated me, a good cordial hate can make these things bearable. But—”

  He shook his head as the ironmonger laid the old woman’s lifeless body down. She was unexpectedly light, little more than skin and bone.

  “Leave them for the Marlovans to find,” Mardric said, grimacing again. Despite his words, the impact was a gut churning with remorse, and even a little thrill of fear.

  You lived your daily life, you even fought for it occasionally, while managing to forget the fact that you could not Disappear anyone whose death you participated in.

  You could go away. You could lie about it. But you could only Disappear someone you had not killed and even then, you could not do it alone, but would be compelled to talk about it unless the Disappearance was before witnesses. Rules so inescapable that some lands formed rituals around them.

  That argued for . . . someone watching, did it not? Except who? And why those rules, though those three could leave, and—“No one will believe she could stab him, so let’s spread the word the Marlovans did it.”

  Zek rubbed his jaw. That was his specialty: rumors. “But the Marlovans always account for one another,” he said. “I mean, they always know where they are. Patrols and the like.”

  “True. But we don’t care what they think. People believe what they want to believe. Spread the rumor. Get the Marlovans tied up in a useless investigation of their own people, and by the time they sort it out, everyone in Lindeth will believe that the Marlovans killed an old woman for her money. Got her belt pouch? Good. Same with this fellow.”

  Mardric picked up his cloak, holding it by a finger, where it gently swung. “Meanwhile, I have an army to find.” He smiled. “The nice thing about armies is, they can’t hide.”

  Mardric tossed the bag of coins on his hand, then pulled his cloak on and they departed. The dead were left to the sound of slowing drips, and the widening light from the sun reappearing between parting clouds.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jeje: here’s a puzzle for you. Elsewhere in the world servants are invisible. Runners here are not. Nor are they the same as servants. They serve but they do a lot of things. More things than I could have imagined. For example, there are two whose entire job is to see to it that all orders are written in an order book, and then copied in the book for the watch commander. One night, one day. So you could say that at least two Runners know as much about what’s going on as the king and all his captains.

  Yet I am invisible to Evred. He has never spoken to me, and if I cross his field of vision, he looks through me. Strange, how people look at one and see . . . what they want to see. Fox hated me on sight. Evred—some sort of cousin to Fox, if I am untangling these ballads and old stories right—finds me invisible. Odd, that.

  Enough about me, are you saying? (I can almost hear your voice. Maybe if I throw myself onto the ground and put a knife to my neck, I will be able to imagine you here.) I guess I can say these things to you because I can’t to Inda. I like practicing with him in the mornings. It’s like a bout with Fox, but without the extra bruises. And I have been welcomed among the Runners, which means they give me things to do if I join them at their fire: fletching arrows, making the “smacker” arrows they use in practice. Sewing.

  Here is my life: up at dawn, fight with Inda with two knives behind our tents. (I’ve a tent to myself. Respect or rejection? You tell me, Jeje.) Then he goes to drill the men while the Runners and the boys training to be Runners get tents down, loaded, and the animals ready. The wagons leave first. A day of riding—me with the Runners, or behind Inda in case he wants something, which he never does. You know how he is: never notices what he’s wearing until I muscle him into something new, and he eats what’s put in front of him.

  When we stop, it’s time for the horse drills while Inda watches and the wagons catch up and make camp. Then campfire. Inda inevitably sits with Evred, and they talk history, or about their boyhood days. Signi (who is under guard, though they keep a respectful distance) sits in silence during the latter, but converses politely on the former. My only use is to knead Inda’s shoulder and arm when it gives him trouble. I said I am invisible to Evred. Signi gets cold looks if she’s not aware, though if he has to speak to her, he’s very formal, distant, courteous.

  She and I don’t speak. Inda and I only talk when we practice. Inda frets about how slow we are, about the muddy roads. (Need I mention it rains every night? Thought not.)

  The first balmy night of the journey, the Marlovans’ drums rattled and tumbled in the familiar galloping rhythms as voices rose, fell, shouted in strict cadence, then broke into laughter.

  Tau was still ambivalent about staying with this army in which he had no real place. The reason for the ambivalence was not only unspoken but unacknowledged. Tau sensed danger—and unfortunately, he had discover
ed a taste for danger these past few years.

  Maybe it was time to find out if he had a place with Inda.

  His chance arrived unexpectedly when the halt signal sounded while the sun was relatively high in the sky.

  The usual orderly commotion followed, orders shouted up and down the disintegrating lines for horses to be led to the river. Evred rode back to talk to the lower-ranking captains.

  Tau edged his mount up to Inda’s. The horses lipped each another, snorting and tossing their heads.

  “What’s wrong?” Tau asked. “Why did we stop?”

  Inda turned his way, brown eyes wide. “It’s not a stop, it’s a halt. We’re going to break out the battle flags and ride properly into Cherry-Stripe’s.”

  “Properly? What does that mean?”

  Inda rubbed the old scar on his jaw, long gone white. “When we flashed sails, what did it mean?”

  “To whom? To Kodl, it meant showing off. Strut,” Tau said.

  “Did you think it was just strut?”

  “Not when we did it. We were making a gesture.”

  “Right.” Inda snorted a laugh. “So riding in at the gallop, banners flying, is kind of like we flash sails all at once, instead of sensibly handling ’em as needed. Every man here—though they won’t say it out loud—wants to be seen riding in like in the ballads, banners snapping, horns blaring. And if—” His smile thinned. “Whether we win or lose, in the local songs, anyway, that ride will be a whole verse.” He tipped his chin eastward. “Lay you any wager someone will be on the walls, paper in hand, to scribble down who was where in line, how many banners, and what color horse the king rode.”

  Tau laughed.

  Inda turned his palms up. “Everybody likes to strut. Just depends on how they do it.”

  “We” flash sails. So Inda had not completely turned his back on his years at sea.