Winter of Ice and Iron

by Rachel Neumeier

  Riheir Coärin had collapsed. She saw that first. He sagged in the soldier’s grip. The effect on the duke had not been not as extreme. He had lifted one hand to cover his eyes. Lines of tension and pain had sprung into existence around his mouth and between his eyebrows as though he had suddenly been stricken with a severe headache, but he did not fall.

  Before Kehera could think what to do, Riheir moved to get his feet back under himself. The soldier braced him with professional, impersonal care until he seemed steady, and then let him go and stepped back. All of Riheir’s attention was on the duke. He took a step forward and opened his mouth, but closed it again without speaking.

  The duke rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers, looking slightly fatigued. Meeting Riheir’s eyes, he lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Eänetaìsarè is a jealous Power. But your . . . Coäiriliöa . . . was not harmed by what I did. You know that is true. That is why Raëhemaiëth did not fight us. Me. Eänetaìsarè.”

  “Yes . . .” Riheir didn’t sound quite sure. He gave Kehera a quick look, mouth tight. “You’ve still got a tie to Raëhemaiëth, have you?”

  Kehera said quietly, “Immanent Powers are . . . You know it’s hard to understand what they do sometimes. But Raëhemaiëth . . . it’s seen the Irekaïn Power. It’s frightened of it, I believe. I know it allied willingly with Eänetaìsarè the moment it got the chance.”

  “Did it? Willingly? Do you think your father will be happy about what you’ve done, bringing the Wolf into Harivir?”

  The Wolf Duke said sharply, “Her Highness has done nothing of which she need be ashamed. She has acted with courage and resolution throughout. Speak to her with respect, Coärin.”

  Both Kehera and Riheir Coärin stared at him. Kehera did not know which of them was more surprised. She rubbed her hand across her mouth and looked away.

  “Get your horse and ride with me,” the duke ordered. “Is the city open?”

  Riheir beckoned for his horse to be brought up. “Yes,” he said. “But—” He glanced away from the duke, along the endless column of gray-clad wolf soldiers.

  The duke raised an eyebrow.

  “We are expecting attack,” Riheir said grimly. “Coäiriliöa is expecting attack. It feels a cold Power gathering strength. It expects attack. At any time. My king tells me he perceives the same from Raëhemaiëth.”

  “Torrolay Elin Raëhema is no longer your king,” the duke reminded him. “But tell me of this attack you anticipate.”

  Riheir took a breath. “We believe the threat comes from the north and the east. I thought at first my Immanent was warning me of you. But it was never your . . . Eänetaìsarè. That’s clear now, beyond any possible doubt. The threat Coäiriliöa showed me was always a different Power. Darker and colder and greater than yours.”

  “I see.” The duke considered him. “I do see. Thus you were brought so easily to yield.”

  “Yes,” Riheir said, rather through his teeth.

  “ ‘My lord,’ ” the Eänetén duke prompted him, with terrible precision.

  For a second Kehera thought Riheir Coärin would defy him, and held her breath. Then Riheir bent his head stiffly. “My lord.”

  “Meilin Gap,” Kehera said quickly, before the tension could wind any tighter. She knew it must be true. She thought she could feel the dark pressure herself now that she knew to look for it. Raëhemaiëth showed it to her. North and east, not so very far. She tried to visualize that country. Meilin Gap wound its narrow way through the mountains just north of Coär, between the smaller province of Viär and some part of Pohorir north of Eäneté. Kimsè, probably.

  Meilin Gap should have been closed; winter always closed such little passes well before the Iron Hinge days. But she thought of how the Eänetén duke had sent the avalanche aside in Roh Pass and knew that this year, cold and snow and winter storms offered no protection.

  “Your soldiers, Coärin?” the Eänetén duke inquired. “I presumed you had chosen to hold them at Coär, or that you had sent them to Raëh.”

  “I sent most to Raëh. But some to Viär, to guard Meilin Gap.” Riheir met the Eänetén duke’s yellow eyes without flinching.

  “Indeed. Well. We will not delay at Coär, I think. We will proceed north immediately.”

  Riheir let out a breath, nodded, and swung up onto his waiting horse. Back rigid, he moved his gelding to a place at the Wolf Duke’s shoulder, on the other side from Kehera. She thought he was deliberately avoiding her eyes, but she could not think of anything she could do about it.

  The duke kept his mare to a steady walk as they exited the pass and came out onto the shoulder of the mountain above the city of Coär. Whatever waited for them at Meilin Gap, he plainly meant to meet it in good order and with men able to fight, not worn out from a forced march. “How many soldiers of yours shall we find at Meilin Gap?” he asked. His voice, though cool, was neither hostile nor gloating. He spoke as he would to an ally, or to a servant.

  Riheir Coärin’s tone when he answered was just barely civil. “Not enough to hold if Methmeir Irekaì opens the way for a real army. Not nearly as many as you’ve brought with you, I think.” He glanced illustratively over his shoulder at the long, long column of gray-clad wolf soldiers. “You’re right to surmise I sent the better part of Coär’s men north to support my king.”

  “Torrolay Raëhema is no longer your king,” the Wolf Duke reminded him.

  “My lord,” Riheir said grimly, acknowledging this. “I left nothing in Coär. I swore to my people that you wouldn’t let any enemy through Roh Pass, that you wouldn’t come as an enemy yourself, that you’d protect our lands and families as though they were your own.” He said this last in a hard, calm voice, but his eyes went involuntarily to the Wolf Duke’s face, gauging his response. Kehera watched Riheir’s uneasy resentment with the sympathy of one who had been there herself.

  “They are my own,” said the Wolf Duke without emphasis. Merely a flat statement. “Everything shall be done as I have said it would be done. You have prepared the people to accept my rule?”

  “My lord, nothing could have done that. I’ve done what I could. It helps—” He stopped.

  “That I am accompanied by Kehera Elin Raëhema. Yes,” said the duke. “That was the intention. I had intended to wed her in Coär.”

  If he had wanted to get a rise out of Riheir Coärin, he could not have done better. Riheir turned sharply in the saddle and bit out, “Everyone in Harivir will hate you for taking her, my lord!”

  His vehemence did not surprise Kehera. She doubted Riheir had ever been in love with her, courting poem or no courting poem; but he liked her and he’d decided he wanted her and he had certainly not wanted a foreign duke to marry her. He was glaring at the Wolf Duke with such fury that she was afraid for him. But the duke only answered, his tone suspiciously mild, “I know. They will fear me for my country of origin and resent me for my strength against their king, but they will hate me for taking their princess by force. Your Highness?”

  No one had ever said Kehera couldn’t recognize a cue when she was handed one on a gilded platter. Collecting herself, she said to Riheir, “You know, the idea of cementing a political alliance by marriage is hardly new. Neither are land concessions to an ally, when the circumstances are desperate enough. Harivir needs Eäneté, which you know, or you would hardly have laid down your banner. Which was very brave,” she added. “But I always knew you were brave.”

  Riheir stared at her, angry and astonished and probably wounded in his pride—she hoped not his heart. She hoped she wasn’t wrong about his feelings, or her own.

  “I’ve seen Enchar, Kimsè, and Eäneté,” Kehera told him, feeling her way through an unexpected emotional tangle of thorns. “At least in passing. And I’ve spoken to people from Tisain, and believe me, there’s no comparison. His Grace will do very well by our people. If I wasn’t convinced of that, I’d cut my own throat before doing anything to help him, and you ought to know it, too, Riheir,” she
added reproachfully.

  Riheir Coärin opened his mouth and shut it again without speaking.

  The Wolf Duke said mildly, “And if you think I could have gotten a speech like that out of her by force, Coärin, you don’t know her as well as you ought.”

  There wasn’t much that Riheir could say to that without offending him or insulting her. After a moment, when Riheir did not answer, the duke went on. “Very little in Coär shall change. I think you will find that a bond to Eäneté does not lie bitter on this land.”

  There was a short silence. Then Riheir said, not quite as grimly, “I understand, my lord. May I ask a question, my lord?”

  The duke barely glanced at him. “Ask.”

  “How do you expect to stop yourself losing Eäneté proper to Irekay, now that so many of your men are here? Are not your own Immanence’s precincts vulnerable, now that you have come through the pass and entered foreign lands?”

  The Wolf Duke gave him a flat, hard look. “No one will take Eäneté from me. I have sealed its borders entirely. I have raised up Eänetaìsarè in all its strength, and forced bonds to lesser powers in the region. Raëhemaiëth supports me, as you have seen. Now your own Coäiriliöa supports me as well. Nothing of Irekay will come through Roh Pass.”

  His voice carried that absolute certainty that compels belief despite any rational doubts. Kehera believed him. She watched Riheir Coärin try not to believe him, and was fairly certain that he failed.

  The duke said, “It is early yet. We will not halt until the light fails. How far is Meilin Gap? Seventy miles, perhaps, is that so? We shall let the wagons trail, I think, and allow the mounted companies to press the pace. Of all things, it will not do to come there too late and find that Irekaì has already established a strategic position on this side of the mountains.”

  On that point, Kehera was sure, they one and all agreed. It might not be enough to make them friends. But she thought it might serve to at least brace up this reluctant alliance.

  18

  Gereth Murrel arrived in Raëh late in the afternoon of the nineteenth day of the Iron Hinge Month in the company of a large number of refugees. Other refugees, for he was a refugee no less than they, for all he did not share their particular fears.

  At first Gereth had ridden swiftly, trying to outdistance the memory of Roh Pass. But dread of his arrival at Raëh gradually overpowered grief, and so by the time he came within sight of the city, he was moving much more slowly. Most of the refugees did not have horses; few enough even oxcarts on the road. All of this day and the previous day, Gereth had carried one child or another before him in the saddle. The current child was a dark-haired wisp of a girl, perhaps four years old. She belonged to a woman who walked beside the horse. The woman was also burdened with an infant, and had a boy of ten years who stayed solemnly by her side. The woman had been grateful for Gereth’s offer of assistance.

  Gereth had been glad to offer. He admired her courage, for taking to the road with such a family—the courage of the desperate, yes, but real courage nonetheless. He wanted to tell her that the Wolf Duke would not have harmed her, would not have permitted his soldiers to harm her, except he dared not explain his confidence. But the company of this small family was useful to him. Anyone who saw him with this family assumed he was the child’s grandfather. That was a great advantage for a man who wished to pass without comment. Now, as he passed into Raëh through open gates and between harried watchmen, no one gave him a second glance. Gereth let his horse shoulder a way gently through the crowd to a quiet spot by the lee of the gate, and nodded gravely to the woman. “Is there anywhere I can help you get to?”

  The woman smiled back gratefully. “No, thank you, sir. I’ll do well enough now.” She reached up an arm to swing the child down from Gereth’s saddle and added, “My cousin’s not far, I think. I’m sure we’ll find the way.” Over the past day, she had told Gereth more than a little of her cousin, a metalsmith in the city, with whom she hoped to find safety until the trouble passed. She added now, with tentative but genuine hospitality, “My cousin might find room for you, too, sir, for the night, if you’ve nowhere else to go.”

  “Thank you,” Gereth said, touched. He had not spoken of his own family to this woman, and evidently she was concerned that he might have none, and so no welcome in this city. She was right, of course, but he said courteously, “I’ve a destination of my own, but I do thank you.”

  The woman smiled at him one more time and threaded her way determinedly into the crowds. Gereth guided his horse back into the street, heading deeper into the city, where he knew the king’s palace would be located.

  Raëh was a sprawling city, built largely of a handsome, understated pale-gold stone that must have been quarried from the low foothills that rose as a sweeping half-circle backdrop to the east. It gave the city a wholly different appearance than Eäneté, which was built more of dark wood and of a different kind of stone. Raëh was walled, of course, but Gereth had seen how the city spilled over those boundaries and ran into the countryside. The city seemed almost an outgrowth of the hills, as deeply rooted and ageless as they. But it was crowded with far more people now than it had been built to contain.

  The Harivin king’s palace, when Gereth found it, was no larger than the Eäneté duke’s house, and considerably less imposing in height and form. It had been built along low, graceful lines, of the same pale stone as the rest of the city. It was set apart from the city proper by a fairly low wall that presented little barrier, not at all like the Pohorin king’s palace in Irekay. The gates of this wall stood open. Men and women came and went quite freely between the city and the outer courtyard of the palace. Having no better idea, Gereth dismounted at one of the posts that stood around the periphery of the courtyard, threw the reins of his horse over the bar, loosened the girth and slipped the bit, and turned toward the busy doors that led into the palace. And stopped. He stood for a long moment next to his horse, resting his hand on its neck, thinking how easy it would be to get back in the saddle and ride away again.

  It had been a long time since Gereth had experienced an attack of true panic. Not since the old duke’s death, more than seven years ago. It was not the same as merely being afraid; this panic froze body and brain alike in a stiff, paralyzing terror. Abruptly, it seemed a very bad idea to walk into the house of the Harivin king. No matter what messages or gifts he carried, or might carry—and he wasn’t even sure what it was he brought with him. All the carefully reasoned arguments that had brought him this far dissolved and left him standing, locked in fear and indecision, in the courtyard.

  No one seemed to notice. Men and women came and went past Gereth in quick flurries of activity with no attention to spare for an ordinary man with a plain horse, even if he was momentarily in their way. Finally one man in the uniform of a Harivin lieutenant rode up close beside him, dismounted, tossed the reins of his horse over the bar, swung down, and eyed Gereth with sudden attention.

  “Here, sir,” he said, his tone mingling impatience with concern, “are you all right?”

  “Yes,” said Gereth huskily, and then cleared his throat and said with more assurance, “Yes, thank you, young man. Excuse me. I hadn’t realized I was in your way.”

  “No difficulty at all, I assure you, sir,” said the lieutenant politely. “May I help you find your direction somewhere, then?”

  Gereth reflexively began to demur. But then, recovering his nerve and his brains from whatever hiding place they had crawled into, said, “Actually, yes. Please. My name is Gereth Murrel. I . . . have a message. From Eäneté. For your king.”

  The Harivin lieutenant did not move for a moment. Then, taking a step back, he gestured Gereth to come from between the horses into a clear space. “Who did you say you were again?”

  “Gereth Murrel,” Gereth repeated patiently. “From Eäneté. I need to speak to His Majesty,” he added patiently as the captain continued to look at him without speaking. He expected . . . he did not know. Poho
rin-bred reflexes told him he should fear any soldier in the service of a king. But this was not Pohorir. And, attacks of sudden panic aside, he knew it was not. He found himself much calmer now that the rods had been cast out to fall as they would.

  The lieutenant took Gereth inside the palace, to a quiet little room without windows where soldiers stood guard at the door. But he was polite about it. He offered no violence. And there was a comfortable couch in the room, where Gereth could sit. Being tired, he was grateful for that mercy.

  Other men came, some soldiers and some not. But no one threatened him. None of them even raised their voices. They showed no impatience with a man who refused to expand on his odd story or amend his outrageous request. After a while, the first men went away, and others came in their places, to hear exactly the same words as their predecessors.

  After a long time, the original Harivin lieutenant brought him watered wine. Gereth thought it might be drugged. Sweet cone bark would make him sleepy and less guarded in speech; the dried leaves of maiden’s blush would have something of the same effect and would be nearly tasteless in any sweet wine. He drank the wine anyway, being thirsty and having no recourse if they chose to drug him. It proved to be simply watered wine.

  The Harivin men were patient, but they were also persistent. Gereth, just as patient, refused to expand on his original explanation or request, fearing to give too much away. What if the court lord to whom they reported, disbelieving what he told them, chose to order him dismissed, or even killed, without ever allowing him to speak to the king directly? As long as they did not know what information he carried, they could not make such a judgment.

  “I’m Gereth Murrel,” Gereth patiently repeated one more time, to a graying Harivin captain with a stern expression and a quiet manner. “I’m from Eäneté,” he repeated wearily. He rested his head in his hands for a moment, fingers over his eyes. How long had it been? He did not know. There were no windows in this room to mark the passing of time. He said, as he had before, “I would like to speak to His Majesty, if he has a moment.”