King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  The girls listened, each face giving tolerable clues to the thoughts behind it. Gdir’s resentment did not abate. Lnand stood in a chin-raised pose she thought heroic, spoiled by the lizard-flicker of her eyelids as she watched the others for reaction. Only Han seemed to comprehend how serious the situation was as she glanced doubtfully at the three-year-olds.

  “Second order. You are to hide out until the king comes. Hiding out means you will not attack the Venn. I don’t care what happens here, and I know you’ll probably hear sounds of battle, since the robbers’ cave is just beyond the first ridge. Sounds might carry that far. You will ignore them. Understand?”

  She waited until childish fists struck skinny chests all along the row, right down to the five- and six-year-olds. The half a dozen younger than that were bewildered, and would remain so, the Jarlan thought with another spike of dread.

  “Your third order. If the king hasn’t arrived yet and the enemy finds you, use the goat trails and run to the south. And report to Tdiran-Randviar. No. Raids. You fight back only if you’ve been discovered. This is not a war game. Understand? I want to see those salutes, which means you understand your orders.”

  Thump! Fists hit ribs, Gdir and Han at the same time, Lnand with dramatic reluctance, her lips tightening to deliver some heroic speech she was surely formulating.

  The Jarlan forestalled it. “Now line up at the tunnel. You’re going to go up that way and cross the pass under cover of dark. Then use the goat trails to get up to the old robbers’ cave.” She thought of the report of sails on the horizon, so many the fisher had said they looked like the teeth of a comb. They were as yet not visible from the castle. But everyone knew they were there.

  The Venn are here.

  “Now!” she barked.

  Ndand began to follow, but the Jarlan stuck out her hand. “Something is wrong, I feel it.” Her gut seized and she sucked in a breath. “I mean more than the obvious. I didn’t expect to see Flash back. His orders were to go straight to the beacon as soon as the ships were sighted. But why haven’t we seen any of his men come down? And where is my husband and the Riders? Where are Barend’s men?”

  Ndand’s skin roughened with an inner chill. She worked to sound practical, unemotional. “You want me to light the beacon, if . . .” Her throat tightened on that last word, and she forced the words out: “He didn’t reach the beacon.”

  “Yes. Then go out onto the viewpoint. If I’m running the red-black flag, you are not to come back here. You are to go to Tdiran in Ala Larkadhe.” Liet’s gut tightened again and she took her daughter-by-marriage’s arm, and squeezed with all her strength. “Ndand. I don’t care what you see or hear in this castle. If I run that signal and see you, I’ll break your marriage myself. Throw you back to Tlen. Stable wanding. Rest of your life.” She ended on a trembling whisper; the Jarlan let go of her arm and hugged Ndand so hard her lungs labored for air, and Ndand felt the tremor of a hard-suppressed sob go through the woman she thought of as a second mother.

  But she knew better than to say anything except, “Orders received.” She summoned Keth with a jerk of her thumb, picked up her gear, and left.

  The Jarlan then picked up the knapsack she’d packed and searched through the castle, until she found Radran, the cook’s prentice. She looked at that frail body, the knobby neck knuckle, and met those anxious eyes. It would take just one strike to kill you, she thought. The Venn would forget you before he’d stepped over your body. But of course she couldn’t say that. Nor could she say that what she and the other adults faced could be borne if they believed their children might live. “No Runners have returned. I have a mission of desperate importance. Only you can do it.”

  Radran’s eyes widened.

  She handed him the knapsack.

  “You are to sneak up Lookout Mountain. Right now. Under cover of darkness. Hide out in Spyglass Cave, where you can see the bay and the road to the east. You have to count all the Venn you see—I put a slate and chalk in the pack. The Jarl will need those numbers. Or the king. Whoever comes first. But don’t move until our banner rises over the castle.”

  The boy struck his chest and was gone.

  “Barend-Harskialdna!”

  The triangular face in the Ala Larkadhe forecourt lifted, squinting against the sunlight. To Nightingale Toraca, standing in the tower just off Hawkeye’s office, Barend Montrei-Vayir always looked as if he’d been put together by someone with a strange sense of humor: a triangular, squint-eyed Cassad face framed by thin dark hair pulled back into a sailor braid instead of a horsetail. A golden hoop with a ruby dangled against his blade-sharp jawbone, his body covered by the Marlovan gray coat and riding trousers, but instead of boots he wore field mocs. Barend was thin, hard as wire-reinforced rope, tougher than anyone on the practice mats—but he rode like a drunk who’d never seen a horse.

  Nightingale grinned as Barend flipped up a hand in greeting. Barend slipped from the horse, whooshing a sigh loud enough for the sound to echo up the granite walls to the weird white tower at Nightingale’s back.

  Nightingale leaped down the stairs four at a time. Everyone gave way for the King’s Runner, though he seldom demanded precedence. But word had flitted through the castle that Barend-Harskialdna was back.

  Nightingale made it all the way to the court before Barend had finished rubbing his scrawny butt.

  Barend was secretly amused by Nightingale, who looked like a shorter and thinner edition of his brother Noddy, but he moved with exactly the same slope-shouldered slouch. His hound-dog face was split by a gap-toothed grin as they exclaimed at the same time, “Any news?”

  A laugh, then Nightingale said, “I just got in last night from the Nob. Biggest news out there was another murder. I thought we’d seen the last of that.”

  “Shit,” Barend exclaimed. “We can’t be rousting all the men out again—”

  “No, no.” Nightingale patted the air. “This time not a secret murder. A gang of Olarans ’fessed right up. Said the fellow was a Venn spy. Caught him with reports written on the new defense plan. It was all there on paper.”

  “You mean we didn’t get blamed?”

  “Naw. It’s only down in Lindeth, and over the hills into Idayago, that they hate us. Up on the Nob they like us. We can fight, and they’ve been overrun and burned out too many times to squawk about who thinks they’re ruling ’em. In fact, worst complaining I heard’s been about the Idayagan Resistance. Talk, trouble-making, money-gathering, and no results.” Nightingale turned his hand up.

  “We seem to get double the trouble down at this end.” Barend made a spitting motion. They’d had to waste time at Hawkeye’s request investigating a double murder in Lindeth Harbor just before summer. One body was supposedly a Venn spy, but the other was the well-respected guild mistress. Lindeth was still blaming the Marlovans for that, even though every single man had been accounted for. They may as well have saved their effort—the polite and noncommittal responses of the harbormaster and his council had made it clear that no one had believed them.

  Nightingale said, “No news at the north end, I take it?”

  He flapped a hand that took in the entire north side of the castle as he glanced ever so casually upward.

  No one visible at the windows.

  Barend slewed around, peering skyward past the strange white tower that looked so much like a block of ice. Beyond it soared the mountains that created the Andahi River, rank on rank.

  “Nothing—” He lowered his voice, so that the watching sentries could not hear his words. “Unless the beacons lit over my head on the mountaintops. You can’t see ’em from below in the Pass.” Barend touched his coat over his locket, his brows rising in question.

  Nightingale flattened his hand, palm down.

  Barend went on quietly, “Last thing I saw was the dust way up over the cliffs after they collapsed the road.”

  “Good.” Nightingale also kept his voice low. “As for the beacons, Hawkeye says there’s been no fires. And d
oesn’t he have a special duty rotation just watching the mountains?”

  “Hand-picked, between him’n me and Flash.” Barend lifted his hands. “Venn sure are taking their time. Maybe the wind hasn’t changed up northside of the strait.”

  They turned their eyes upward again, making sure that no one was within earshot.

  Barend and Nightingale each carried a locket matched to the king’s. Until just a couple weeks ago they knew more than anyone else did, including most of each other’s news, but they’d had to go through the forms. It was Evred’s will that no one, ever, find out about the magical communications.

  Now, at a glance, they discovered that neither locket worked. Both of them had been cut off from magical communication. That meant they were equally cut off from the king.

  Well, what was good enough for our ancestors, Barend thought as he yanked his sash free.

  Nightingale hoped uneasily that the midday sun wouldn’t conceal the beacon fires when they did come, and Barend wondered uneasily where the king’s army was. “Ola-Vayir or Buck Marlo-Vayir reached Lindeth yet?”

  “No sign of anyone,” Nightingale said.

  Barend paused in the act of unbuttoning his coat, then continued. Nightingale had to bite back a protest as Barend shrugged out of the sturdy cloth and slung it across the saddle just before the stable hands took the horse away, leaving him there not in a proper linen shirt, but one of those cotton tunic-shirts he’d brought from the other side of the continent. It was all rumpled and sweaty, but Barend did not seem to notice as he retied his crimson sash.

  Crimson. The reminder that this was Barend, the king’s cousin, who’d had no training except for that pirate-style contact fighting that reminded them of the women’s Odni. No fault of his own, being thrown away to sea where nobody learned anything else of use. So the men reassured one another when he broke yet another unspoken rule.

  A sharp-chinned face appeared in the window above: Hawkeye, summoned by a Runner who’d heard the familiar voices below.

  He waved them to come upstairs. They vanished from below, through the entrance to the newer, granite-built part of Ala Larkadhe castle, and Hawkeye turned away to await them, staring down at the desk.

  The poets maintain that the most vivid memories are happiness and sorrow, but there are others who will insist that guilt and humiliation reach far deeper, so deep that they are not just vivid memories, but have the strength to motivate across decades, even centuries in a clan or kingdom. Who seeks revenge for happiness?

  Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir had had almost a month to think about the news from Evred-Harvaldar, spoken from Runner to galloping Runner: The army is on the march, and at its head the king with Indevan-Laef Algara-Vayir at his side, to command the war as Harskialdna.

  Algara-Vayir. The first mention of that name threw Hawkeye back in memory to the Summer Without a Banner, the night a careless slap of his own hand struck a shivering, exhausted scrub to his death. Hawkeye hadn’t meant to hit him hard, but he’d been drunk on smuggled wine given to him by the Sierlaef himself, as consolation for being stuck on night guard duty. His companions had not blamed him afterward, and united in hiding the forbidden wine from the masters. They knew he hadn’t intended but a slap. There hadn’t even been a mark on the boy’s face, but he had died all the same.

  Now, riding back to take Hawkeye’s place as commander (because no one regarded Barend as Harskialdna in anything but name) after all these years of jolting memories and terrible dreams was the boy who witnessed that. Who, for some unaccountable reason, had been given the blame for that death. Then exiled, young as he was.

  By the time Barend and Nightingale arrived outside his office, Hawkeye had had time to consider what he’d say. He was technically under Cousin Barend’s command, but they had agreed on how they’d handle that fiction during their very first interview. Barend had been disarmingly forthcoming, which won Hawkeye over immediately: he devised the orders that Barend either spoke or endorsed.

  Barend said, “No news north of the pass when I left.”

  Hawkeye returned, “Nothing from our beacon watchers. And nothing from Ola-Vayir.”

  Barend whistled under his breath. Nightingale said shrewdly, “What do you wager he’s dawdling along the road somewhere?”

  “That family made no secret of wanting the north as part of Ola-Vayir.” Hawkeye tipped his head back. “Probably think because Evred’s young, they can shoulder him into it.”

  His cousin Evred had been a quiet, scholarly sort of boy, but kingship had changed him. The older generation all said—in private—he was every day becoming more like the grandfather Evred and Hawkeye and Barend shared. Hawkeye’s mother had said once, My father inherited all the trouble the Montredavan-Ans willed us, along with their crown. The only way he could see to unite the Jarls was to ride off to war, give ’em more land. But our generation is paying for that war. And that land. He’d always thought that meant old monetary debts of some sort, but since he’d come to live here in the north he wasn’t so sure.

  Barend’s thoughts were obviously running parallel. “Hope I get to be there to watch Ola-Vayir try to squeeze Evred for more land before the old wolf brings his boys in.”

  Hawkeye said, “Why don’t we save ’em the trouble? Nightingale, I’m thinking you’d better go yourself down the coast road out of Lindeth until you find Ola-Vayir. Ride alongside him. Offer to be helpful. He’s not going to lag under your eyes.”

  Nightingale’s grunt was midway between agreement and a laugh.

  Barend rubbed his backside again. “Wasn’t that supposed to be Buck’s job?”

  “Right.” Hawkeye grinned. “And Buck would cut out his own heart with a spoon before he’d risk missing the action, but there’s no sign of him, either. So that’s why Nightingale better go, just in case they got mired somewhere.”

  Nightingale said, “I’ll ride out soon’s we’re done here.”

  “Barend.” Hawkeye tipped his chin toward the east. “I got a Runner this morning. Evred’s just a couple days from us, and wants you to ride down and meet ’em.”

  Barend chuckled under his breath. “You mean hand off command to Inda, then. And not a heartbeat too soon.”

  His lack of strut made even Hawkeye grin.

  Barend cocked his head. “Wonder if I’ll have to fight for it. Don’t Harskialdnas fight? I mean, in the old days, if someone wanted to challenge them for the position?”

  Nightingale gave his turtle shrug.

  “Challenges happened, yes. Usually at Convocation,” Hawkeye said. “Come to think of it, some of the old ballads have it happening in the field, too.” A corner of his mouth curled. “Did in the old ballad my father’s family sings, ‘Yvana Ride Thunder.’ We lost to the Montrei-Haucs, but we lost heroically.”

  They all laughed, then Barend ran a hand over his broad forehead. “But isn’t that for Harskialdna as permanent rank, not for one battle? Or does he want Inda for life? Either way is all right with me. I never wanted it. Everyone knows that. Oh. It’s not me, it’s Inda, is that it? There can’t possibly be problems accepting him. I can’t believe people are that stupid.”

  Nightingale tipped his hand back and forth, like a trader’s weight scale evenly balanced. “Some of ’em—coastal men, mostly—remember the pirate fights. No problem there. It’s the inland men. A lot of ’em from Horsebutt Tya-Vayir’s connections. Mostly think he’s the king’s claphair.”

  Barend raised his brows. “Claphair?”

  “Academy slur.” Hawkeye snorted. “Sex for favors.”

  Barend looked vaguely surprised. “Not Inda. He hardly sees it when a woman wants him, unless she grabs him by the balls.” And after he’d been living around that Taumad with absentminded indifference for years, it was safe to say that Inda hadn’t any interest at all in the fellows, Barend thought, laughing inwardly. As for Evred, Barend remembered him having occasionally sent for fellows from Hadand’s pleasure house the winter before, but instead of loading any of them
with privileges, he hadn’t even kept them for the night. “Naw, that can’t be right.”

  “It’s just Horsebutt,” Hawkeye said impatiently, already through with the subject. He’d been remembering the men’s faces, their talk, before the battle at the Nob. “You might have to fight Inda to get the men behind him. Right before a battle, they have to believe he’s the best.”

  Barend, veteran of many ship battles, recognized Hawkeye’s low, intense tone. Just like a pirate duel on the captain’s deck. He flicked his hand up in agreement. “I’ll rest my aching ass. Be off in the morning.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “HEY,you men!” The high voice off to Tau’s left sounded thin as a gull’s cry, as he rode a way back along the column.

  Tau turned his head. A skinny, barefoot boy had darted from the hedgerow lining one side of the North Road and shouted through cupped hands.

  Heads turned, then back again. An embarrassed mother marched out and grabbed the urchin by the scruff of his smock.

  The boy spread arms and legs, fighting to stay. “When’s the battle?” he cried. “When’s the battle? We wanna waaaatch!”

  The mother thrust her son back through the ancient hedgerow, leaving behind the sound of her scolding and his rising wail of protest.

  “Ye might tell us,” an old man wheezed from a rocky outcropping above a slight bend in the road. “Where it’s gonna be, so we can hide ourselves.” And he cackled, as if at a very good joke.

  From his clothing and the crook he was a shepherd. Sheep grazed over the slow incline rising toward those sky-touching mountains, evidence of a catastrophic landslide ages ago. The long flat slope had long been tamed by old trees and complicated long-grass communities, patch-worked on the eastern slope with farms. In the center, guarding the narrowing entry into the mountains, sat Ala Larkadhe, shaped like a crown with its mysterious remnant of Old Sartor in the weird white tower soaring above the newer granite castellated city.