While one sentry closed the panels, the other approached Colbey. “Sir, the horses can stay here. Your gear will be safe. You’ll have to leave your weapons.”
“No,” Baran contradicted immediately. “You can keep your weapons with you.” The look he gave the sentry promised a later explanation, but Colbey believed he understood. He could disarm an enemy and use the blade as swiftly and competently as his own. If any man in the courtroom carried a sword, as undoubtedly the guards did, any need for hostility would find that weapon in Colbey’s hands. It made far more sense to garner the Renshai’s trust than to chance such a thing.
“Colbey, Kayt, come with me.”
Leaving the horses, the aristiri, and the gear, Colbey and Khitajrah followed Baran through the courtyard, across the moat bridge, and into the interior of Béarn’s castle. He brought only the staff, clasped in one hand. It looked conspicuously out of place, a walking stick onto which he placed none of his weight.
Little had changed since Colbey last traversed these corridors. The blue and tan brocade swinging from the animal-shaped torch brackets had gathered no dust. Once, Mitrian had told him, precious gems had swung in gaudy, wealth-flaunting strings. But Sterrane had channeled the castle’s unnecessary decoration back into gold for its citizenry. Still, no one could mistake the high king for a pauper. Murals swept over every inch of the walls. The artists had skillfully worked interrupting doors into the scenery, either by meticulously changing the perspective until they became invisible or by working the teak panels and archways into the picture.
Baran and his followers passed a few guardsmen in the corridors, and the captain exchanged soft and brief conversation with each. As they neared the courtroom, Colbey watched Khitajrah study a war scene in fascination. It depicted Renshai storming a Western city, the barricades weakening and the blond reavers engaged in sword battles, one Renshai against many. The scene brought back memories of Colbey’s youth during the Renshai’s hundred year exile from the North. Then, they had wandered from the Eastlands through the West learning skills—from monks, barbarians, and the world’s finest sword masters—that formed the basis for the Renshai maneuvers. Sword training and war. His life had consisted of nothing else, nor had he missed those other aspects of existence that so many took for granted. Sword training and war. He had needed nothing more since birth. Now, in his seventies, it seemed strange to consider commitment to something new. And yet, he had.
Baran motioned Colbey and Khitajrah around a silk-clad merchant with a six man entourage. Coffers and chests filled the hallways, and the mixed aroma of spices perfumed the corridor. Clearly, the merchant had brought gifts or barter for his meeting with the king, or perhaps he chose to pay his tax in goods. He frowned as Colbey and Khitajrah threaded around his entourage, but he said nothing about the unfairness of their audience out of sequence.
Baran flicked a hand to indicate that Colbey and Khitajrah should wait against the wall, across from the courtroom’s double doors and the pair of sentries before it. Then he slipped over to talk with the guards.
Shortly, the Béarnides pushed open the panels. Two guards exited, escorting an aging Béarnide between them. The grin on the man’s face indicated that things had gone well with his request or trial, which did not surprise Colbey. He knew Sterrane’s gentle manner well, and his mercy had become legendary.
“Come with me.” Baran headed into the courtroom immediately after the guards and their charge had left. Colbey indicated that Khitajrah should go first, then followed her through the portals. The doors swung shut behind them.
The oddity of Béarn’s guard captain serving as escort must have struck guards and courtiers immediately because the room settled into a hush as the three traversed the long gold carpet that ran between rows of benches. Only a few members of the nobility sat, scattered along the seats. Colbey suspected Sterrane’s policies had become predictable routine to them. Yet, as simple as the king’s judgments and dealings seemed, Colbey knew Sterrane was capable of clever thought when the situation demanded it. His methods and morality were as guileless as they appeared most of the time. Few would believe or understand the stability that Sterrane, as the West’s high king, truly represented. Only Colbey’s scant Wizard’s training and power to read emotion as well as words told him that Sterrane served as the fulcrum of neutrality, a balancing axis for the world of man.
Khitajrah’s apprehension had become a constant, but it increased sharply as they entered the courtroom. She caught his hand suddenly, her grip warm and damp. “I didn’t know we’d come before the king. There’s something I should have told you . . .” She trailed off, her whisper nearly audible to everyone in the otherwise silent room.
Colbey frowned, shaking his head to indicate the problem would have to wait. Already, he could sense the bowstring tautness of the guards stationed behind and on every side of the throne. Passing private messages now would only arouse false suspicions and risk misunderstanding.
Baran trotted ahead to announce the pair. “Majesty, forgive the interruption. I thought you’d want to see Sir Colbey Calistinsson and the Eastern woman, Kayt.”
Another step, and Colbey came close enough to recognize features. Sterrane appeared as always: robust and happy, his beard well-tended and his features friendly. Attentive at his right hand, Mar Lon went rigid. Apparently taking their cues as much from the king’s personal bodyguard as their captain, the guards shifted uneasily, hands slipping hiltward.
Sterrane’s smile seemed to encompass his entire face as Colbey moved closer. His dark eyes revealed unabashed joy as well as excitement. “You find each other! That wonderful. Really wonderful.” He started to rise, but Mar Lon’s hand on his forearm kept him in place.
Colbey supposed it was an essential precaution, not necessarily aimed against him. Sterrane’s habit of expressing his joy with hugs and concern with touch might pose a danger to the childlike monarch in many situations. Colbey doubted the guards cared much for their king’s tendency to place himself in perils nearly impossible to avert.
“Thank you, Sire,” Colbey replied, no other response seeming appropriate or necessary. He wondered what Khitajrah might have said that made their coming together seem significant to King Sterrane.
The king studied the pair closely, puppy eyes flitting from one to the other repeatedly. “Not see . . . not see match.” He struggled for the last word, and the one he chose made little sense to Colbey. “Who mother? Look like mother?”
The words seemed nonsensical to Colbey. Sterrane’s broken speech made understanding impossible. “Excuse me, Sire?”
Khitajrah fielded the question. Still grasping Colbey’s hand, she squeezed to indicate that he should play along with her. “Majesty, it was my mistake, and I apologize for involving you in it. It turns out Colbey’s not my father after all.”
Though shocked, Colbey suppressed the urge to glance at Khitajrah. Instead, he gave her hand a warning gouge meant to indicate a lengthy discussion to occur later.
“Oh.” Sterrane’s mouth clamped closed, his lower lip suddenly appearing huge. He seemed vastly disappointed as well as surprised. “Oh,” he repeated.
Colbey changed the subject to the matter about which he had come to Béarn. He had no intention of having truly important issues become lost beneath a chaos-inspired lie. “Sire, it’s good to see things well here. I came to speak with Arduwyn. Is he here?”
Sterrane turned his leonine head back to Colbey. “Was here. Left for woods days ago.”
Now it was Colbey’s turn to frown. Arduwyn had grown up in the forests near Béarn and his home city of Erythane. If he wanted privacy, no man could find him there. “Maybe you can help me, then. I sent my horse to Arduwyn. That’s what I came for.”
All sorrow disappeared from Sterrane’s demeanor, replaced by eager thoughtfulness. “White horse? Knight horse?”
“Frost Reaver, yes.” A spark of hope flashed through Colbey. “You saw him?”
The king nodded vigorou
sly. “Brought here with Ardy. Traded for his horse.” He turned a brief glance to Khitajrah, who looked away. “We send message to Erythane. See who lose horse.”
“Reaver’s here?”
Sterrane shook his head. “When Ardy leave, horse throw fit. Kick down stall. Follow.”
“I’m sorry,” Colbey said, only partially so. It bothered him that, under other circumstances, he would have found Frost Reaver here. However, it did please him to find the strength of the horse’s loyalty to his command. That seemed to bode well for reclaiming an animal that had become as much companion as mount. “Could you spare a guide? With one, it’ll prove hard enough finding Arduwyn. Without one, it’d be impossible.”
“Me find one,” Sterrane promised. “You two stay dinner? Sleep night?”
Though tempted to push on as soon as possible, Colbey considered. He knew Sterrane missed adventuring and his old companions from before he had become king. He sensed a desperate loneliness about the monarch that needed satisfying, a loss of the weighty responsibilities that came with rulership, if only for a moment. Though Colbey had never shared the closeness of a real friend the way Garn, Mitrian, and Arduwyn had, it would do the Béarnian well to have some visitors; and he and Khitajrah could use fresh food and rest. “Sire, your hospitality is appreciated.”
Sterrane fairly beamed.
* * *
The feast brought back distant memories of Colbey’s last visit to Béarn, including the need to tend to business that had assailed him both times. Now, Sterrane entertained far fewer guests. He chose a seat at one side of the table, directly across from Khitajrah and Colbey, with Baran and Mar Lon at either hand. The chairs at either end were vacant. Colbey let Sterrane make most of the conversation, answering questions as briefly as politeness would allow. Mar Lon said nothing, silently assessing every word Colbey spoke as if to analyze the effects of chaos on the Western Wizard. Baran seemed far the more human of the two. Though attentive to his king, he added his piece to the conversation at intervals, responding appropriately to jokes and comments, no matter their source.
Apparently sensing or understanding Colbey’s interest, Sterrane dwelt longest on the goings on among the Renshai. Colbey discovered that they believed him dead, which did not surprise him. He had last seen them at a time when his age hung heavily on him. The death in glory he always sought had become a moment to moment obsession. He had left them for the forests, cradling the body of Episte, the last of the last. Loki’s pronouncement finally seemed to gain meaning with the image. Always, Colbey had believed himself the last of the full-blooded Renshai. But it was Episte’s father, Rache Kallmirsson, who now claimed that sad honor. The means of Episte’s death seemed even more appropriate now, his suffering ended by the final symbol of the Renshai: the last nådenal, the priest-blessed mercy dagger of Sif.
Colbey also discovered that Rache Garnsson had married Arduwyn’s daughter, Sylva. The Renshai tribe would live on, its bloodline even farther removed from its Northern origins. Neither of the youngsters had a significant amount of Renshai blood, though Colbey felt certain both had Renshai ancestors. Of all the Western cities, only Béarn and its sister city of Erythane had thought to befriend the marauding Renshai during their time of exile. The Erythanian women had taken to the Renshai’s few redheads, and Arduwyn surely descended from at least one such union. Rache’s grandfather had been as blond as any Northman, probably due to an ancestor’s coupling with Renshai. Though a member of any of the other seventeen Northern tribes could also account for such a feature, the Northmen’s xenophobia made this unlikely.
Colbey found his mind wandering to such matters long after Sterrane switched the discussion to his own wives and children. A fresh variety of food left Colbey in a comfortable state that bordered on torpid. As pleased as he felt with the continuous improvement in the West since the War, here things always seemed right. Through the millennia, the line of Eastern Wizards had worked to find the perfect balancing forces for the West’s high kingdom. They had convinced Odin to make the bards loyal bodyguards to the kings in addition to their other duties. One by one, they had set the stage for Sterrane’s rulership. Yet now that the massive, childlike Béarnide had finally hit his stride, now that the shattered Renshai had nearly become a tribe again, now that common men and women had learned to use the first trickles of chaos to enhance themselves, the world perched on the brink of Ragnarok.
It all seemed grievously wrongful, a violation of a deep, eternal fairness. Colbey understood Loki’s explanation in a way no other could. To a point, he had sanctioned the same beliefs. He had loosed chaos because of the need to avert the stagnation that had come with law too long unopposed. Loki had even convinced him that some of the gods must die, that the rise of chaos made them unnecessary at best and an anachronism at worst. Still, Colbey felt certain that, with Sterrane and his descendants as its central point, mankind could flourish with a shifting balance of law and chaos. Already, he had seen the changes they had made to adjust to its coming: dedication and inventiveness as well as suspicion, caution, and doubt.
Yet the matter seemed moot. The lord of all fire giants, Surtr, was destined to destroy Frey and the elves he represented, then to set man’s world aflame. Colbey found some solace in the knowledge that mankind was destined to repopulate, from a single man and woman hidden in the trunk of the World Tree. The elves and any other faerie folk who might exist would be utterly destroyed.
A knock on the chamber door jarred Colbey from thoughts that had made him oblivious to the conversations still in progress around him. The door edged open cautiously, and a guard’s head poked through the crack. “Sire?”
Sterrane responded in the Béarnian tongue, his obvious fluency an eerie contrast to the choppy incompetence of the language he had used throughout the feast.
The guard continued to use the common trading language, apparently in order to gauge the reactions of Sterrane’s guests to his words. “Sire, a hawk flew into the castle, and we can’t seem to catch it. Sire, it looks—”
An echoing call from farther down the outer hallway cut him off. The guard pulled the panel shut. Something thunked against the wood, followed by a dry rustle of feathers and an angered squawk.
Colbey tried to clear up the mystery. “I’m sorry, Sterrane. It’s probably mine. There’s an aristiri hawk that travels with me.”
Mar Lon spoke his first words of the dinner. “An aristiri? Are you certain?”
Colbey shrugged, taking no insult. He hardly considered himself a competent bird identifier. “It’s a rather large hawk, though it weighs less than a sword and sings like a richi bird.”
A timid knock again sounded from the opposite side of the door.
“Let bird in.” Sterrane’s voice thundered, inappropriately loud for an enclosed space; but the volume was necessary for the guards to hear him through the door.
The door swung open. A red falcon careened around the corner, making a right angle turn in midair then diving into the room. It was not Formynder, yet Colbey recognized it. Swiftwing. The first stirrings of dread rose within him, and he touched the staff leaning against his chair to ascertain its continued presence.
The falcon circled the table, alighting on Colbey’s arm. Though smaller than the aristiri, it sank its talons through cloth, toenails scratching but not embedding in the flesh beneath. His gaze went naturally to the parchment bound to one scaly leg.
Mar Lon smiled, though his eyes revealed no mirth. “I hate to contradict the great Knight-mage, but that’s not an aristiri.”
“I know.” Colbey ignored the bard, believing his answer enough to imply this was not the bird to which he had referred either. He stripped the message from its leg, unrolling it with a caution that bordered on delay. He remembered the years he had spent in Santagithi’s court and how the great general/strategist had met every situation, good and bad, with the same stalwart courage and not a second of hesitation. Still, every fiber of his being told him that the Cardinal Wizards
had done something massive and ugly this time. They had left him alone too long for anything else to be the case. The message read:
“We have the Renshai. Don’t bother to look; you can’t find them. Leave the staff by the Renshai cottages and no harm will come to them or you. Any other action will ensure their deaths.”
The signature was an illegible single rune, but Colbey did not need it to know who had sent the note. “No reply, thank you,” he told the falcon, uncertain whether it understood words or intentions. He turned his attention to the guards still in the doorway. “Free the hawk, please.”
As if on cue, the bird flapped from Colbey’s forearm, headed for the opening. The guards stepped aside to let it leave the room, then closed the door behind them.
“What say?” Sterrane asked, sounding concerned.
Colbey shook his head, his first thought to keep the problem to himself, at least for now. Oddly, despite a myriad of worries, responsibilities, and uncertainties, the wisdom that came to him had been spoken by an enemy turned friend in a Pudarian tavern: “If you don’t learn to share what you are, Colbey Calistinsson, you’ll know only loneliness and those who care most for you will suffer.” There’s more at stake here than the preservation of a Northern tribe. I can’t handle three Wizards and their apprentices alone. Colbey wrestled with the thought. If I bring an army, we may or may not stop the Wizards, but the Renshai will surely die. He considered Mitrian, the dedication, proficiency, and strength of character that had made her Rache Kallmirsson’s logical choice to continue the line. His own years of training her had confirmed the rightness of that decision. Tannin, Tarah, and Modrey carried the Renshai blood and the natural dexterity trained into the line. Rache had inherited everything good from his mother and grandfather, and the strength his ex-gladiator father had given him would add new dimensions to a tribe that had always relied solely on quickness and skill.
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 49