You will have to do better, Jasnah. You can’t depend on what you knew before. You have to learn to work in a different environment now.
The first thing she had to do was remind herself that Meridas wasn’t just a fop. He was a dangerous enemy. She had to remember the cool hate she had felt on that night of the dueling competition as she knelt over Nelshenden’s corpse.
With that thought firmly in mind, she was able to notice things she should have seen earlier, and recognize the extent of her mistakes. The hundred villagers marched around her, but they were not her men. They belonged to Meridas. In the city, she had assumed that since she had Meridas’s oath, she would have control of the soldiers as well. She had misjudged—always before, when she had been allowed to meddle in military affairs, she had done so at her brother’s indulgence. Meridas intended to give her no such leeway, and he had both tradition and law on his side. The command of fighting men was a Masculine Art. As long as their group had been made up of refugees, a female could claim leadership. As soon as it became a military expedition, however, her authority found its end.
Scouts did not report to her. Great consideration was given to her comfort, but Meridas’s two nobleman lieutenants felt no need to ask her opinion or consent for their actions. She could command Meridas, of course, but she could only do so in private, and he could easily conceal information from her with excuses.
As the evening march progressed, Jasnah realized that she had work to do—Meridas could not be allowed to remain in control. Somehow, she would have to re-take command of the group.
Unfortunately, the march soon revealed a second, even more humiliating mistake in her reasoning. She had been wrong to assume she could easily maintain a quicker speed. Meridas set a fervent pace, and the men followed without complaint—some of the older citizens had served in the military in their youth, and even those who weren’t accustomed to military discipline had spend their lives working in fields and doing other kinds of manual labor. She would have thought Meridas himself to be plush from his life as a merchant, but that was obviously another error. He seemed completely unfazed by the strenuous pace.
The pain in her feet grew worse, and aches from their previous march returned with vengeful anger. Until the escape from Ral Eram, she had been carried almost everywhere she went, and it was discomforting to discover just how unprepared she was for an extended hike. Soon she was sweating despite the cool air, and she felt pains in her chest and side. Taln’s pack was heavy on her back, as if he had filled it with stones just to spite her.
She wouldn’t complain, however. She wouldn’t call for them to slow their pace just to appease her weakness. Taln’s words from before had stung more than he probably knew. Are you so charmed by your own arrogant grandeur that you would risk the safety of your kingdom in exchange for a little comfort? She had acted no differently than any noblewoman would, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for him. Well, he would get no further pleasure from mocking her weakness. She would keep up; she would continue placing step after step, forcing herself to keep moving, until Meridas called halt. Or she collapsed.
“It will grow easier,” a voice said beside her. “You may not realize it, but our hike to Marcabe strengthened you. Your body is still unaccustomed to extended movement, but it will grow stronger. Today and tomorrow will be the worst.”
Jasnah glanced to the side, not bothering to mask her spite. Taln marched with apparent ease. No sweat marred his brow, despite his enormous pack, and his step even had a bit of a spring to it. Of course he’s happy, she thought, Meridas may have recruited himself an army, but we’re still moving toward Taln’s goal. He doesn’t care about Alethkar—he simply wants to feed his delusions. As long as we continue toward the ruins of the Holy City, he will be happy.
Taln eyed her, smiled slightly, but didn’t say anything.
“What?” Jasnah demanded, raising a hand to wipe her brow. “No mocking words? Or is the sight of me walking along like this enough of an amusement on its own?”
“You’re tired,” Taln said, “and that has made you irritable. Try and take your mind off of your misery.”
“And perhaps you’d like to tell me what to think of instead?” she snapped.
Taln nodded toward the front of the line. “Well, we could decide exactly what we’re going to do about him.”
Meridas and his attendants marched at the head of the group, their silhouettes distinguished by their broad nobleman’s cloaks. When they had begun the night’s trip, Jasnah had been near the front, but she noticed with chagrin that she was now trailing the main body by a short distance. There was little formality to their march—no neat lines, just men in clusters, talking and joking with each other. It was amazing to Jasnah that they could be so lighthearted when the pace left her gasping. Meridas had organized the troops into ten-man squads, and rotated scouting duties between them for now, until he determined which men were more proficient at the duty than others.
The teams also traded turns pulling Taln’s four supply carts, which rolled and bumped across the uneven ground. They had left behind the farmlands, moving once again into rolling hills growing with rockbuds and other wild foliage. Creeping roshtree vines, engorged with water from the Bellow, curled in shadowed places alongside larger boulders or crevices. Cratters, with their four arrow-shaped leaves, clung to stone surfaces—most were dead and dry. They would only begin growing again with the steady fall highstorms.
Something bothered her about the scene. Meridas seemed . . . too comfortable. True, he had been in the Pralir war with Elhokar, and was no stranger to troops or even leadership. However, a court dandy shouldn’t know how to organize and command troops—moreover, he shouldn’t know how to carry himself as he did. Like a man to be followed, a strong commander of soldiers.
He’s done this before, Jasnah decided. It wasn’t that his foppish mannerisms were a show—she suspected that he really was exactly as he presented himself. There were just more sides to the man than she’d first assumed—he wasn’t simply a merchant who had talked his way into her brother’s graces. He was a clever man, with a background and experience, just like any other.
“What do you think we should do about him?” Jasnah said, trying to overcome her physical pains and focus on the dialogue.
“Well,” Taln said, “first I suggest that you and I stop squabbling.”
Jasnah eyed him. “A truce?” she asked.
“An alliance,” he corrected. “One not born of forced oaths, Jasnah, but of simple honesty. I respect your opinion and your right to lead these men. In turn, all I ask is that you respect my desire to reach Jorevan.”
Jasnah shifted her pack from one uncomfortable position to another, studying the man who walked beside her. What did he owe her, really? What did she even know about him?
“I want to reach the Holy City,” Taln said, “but I have no intention of breaking my oath at this time. I want to see this people cared for and trained, the same that you do. You can trust me, Jasnah. I will not betray you.”
She felt a desire . . . almost a need to trust him. And, to an extent, she thought she could. There was a piece of him that could never be trusted, however. The madness.
We’ll worry about that later, she decided. For the moment, Meridas was a far more pressing problem.
“Very well,” she said. “Let’s work together.”
“Good,” Taln said, nodding forward again. “What do you know of him—particularly of his life before he came to court?”
“Not much,” Jasnah said with a sigh. “I looked into his background, of course, once my brother started paying attention to him. Meridas’s recent record as a merchant is well-known—he was active in Alethkar for about a decade before he came to the capital. Before that . . . well, I know that he came from a Fifth city in southeastern Alethkar, where he was of a lesser noble line. I could find no close living relatives, however.”
“Nothing about his childhood?” Taln asked. “Or where he got h
is military experience?”
Jasnah shook her head. “What I could discover didn’t lead me to believe he had any military experience.”
“That’s obviously not true,” Taln said, studying the man’s form up ahead.
“I know,” Jasnah said. “I noticed the same thing. But he could have learned these skills during the war in Prallah. He spent a lot of time with my brother, though Meridas himself was never given any major commands. Also, most noble boys—no matter what their rank—receive training in the arts of military leadership.”
“Perhaps,” Taln said doubtfully. “Kemnar said that Meridas dueled well at the competitions.”
“He dueled very well,” Jasnah said. “Or, at least, he did the one time he decided to fight—when he wanted to humiliate Lord Dalenar’s heir. But I’ve met tensets of traveling dandies who can swordfight with the finest of soldiers. That doesn’t mean they’re much use in real war, once you remove the formalities and conveniences of the dueling ring. I don’t know, Taln. He carries himself well, but maybe he’s just good at mimicking what he sees in others.”
Taln nodded. “Some things, however, cannot be faked. Kemnar also told me Meridas had an opal to place in Glyphting, once the king granted it to him. Why did he choose my Blade from the pile?”
“I don’t know,” Jasnah said. “Because he wanted to spite you?”
“No, he and I had no rivalry then. He chose my Blade because it was a soldier’s weapon—it was weighted the best, and formed the best, for practical use. He saw that, even if he did so unconsciously, and selected it.”
Jasnah sighed. She didn’t mention that she had been there when Taln lost ‘his’ Blade. The weapon’s opal had been newly placed, still clear, which meant its imprinted form would have belonged to the man who owned it before Taln. Taln, however, would never admit that.
Taln was still studying Meridas. “This man has been oft underestimated,” he decided. “And he encourages such misunderstandings.”
Jasnah nodded. “Our fist task should be to keep him from gaining absolute control of these men. I realize you don’t approve of my decision to bring them, but that is past us now. It’s going to be a very long march to Kholinar if we let Meridas remain in control.”
“Agreed,” Taln said.
“However,” Jasnah continued, “it’s going to be difficult to do anything about his leadership. Meridas is the ranking nobleman of the group, and he was the one who organized the men in the first place.”
Taln paused, frowning slightly. “He told them of our departure, true. But I don’t know that he is the only reason they decided to join us.”
He nodded forward again, and Jasnah noticed occasional glances from the men up ahead—glances backward. The few close to Jasnah and Taln seemed to be trying to watch the madman without actually looking at him. Suddenly, Jasnah remembered the stories, the whispers, and the stir that Taln had caused in Marcabe. The initial refugee group had regarded Taln with almost worshipful reverence, though Jasnah had attributed the sentiment to his saving their lives. If, however, they had passed their feelings on to the people of Marcabe . . .
Taln was right. The stories of his rescues in Ral Eram, mixed with the common man’s superstitious nature, would have persuaded many to wonder if, indeed, he was a Herald—despite Jasnah and Meridas’s insistences otherwise. These men had not come simply because Meridas had asked. They had come, at least partially, because they hoped to see proof of Taln’s possible divinity.
“Offer to train them,” Jasnah said. “See if they’ll spar with you. I’ll order Meridas to let you provide them with lessons—he won’t have any grounds to object, since the men obviously need instruction if they’re to be of any use to my brother.”
Taln nodded. “A good suggestion. As I spar with them . . . well, we’ll see where their loyalties truly lie.”
Over the next few days, Taln proved annoyingly correct about her fatigue. The first few days of marching were by far the worst she had experienced yet, but the pain and fatigue did begin to decrease by the third day.
Meridas made no formal objection to Taln’s training of the soldiers, though he did argue with Jasnah in private, claiming that Taln would ‘taint the men with his madness.’ Though Jasnah worried about the same thing, she remained firm in her command. Not only did Taln’s training undermine Meridas, but she soon realized that—whatever its motivations—the lessons made quick and vast improvements in their troop quality.
Though she had spent little time on battlefields themselves, she suspected she knew more about troops, fighting, and combat units than any other noblewoman. Meridas might have some unexplained military experience in his background, but it was soon obvious that Taln himself was the far better commander. The men obeyed Meridas, but he treated them with the same terse arrogance that he used with all of his inferiors. Even after just three training sessions—each performed at the end of a day’s march—Jasnah could see that the men had grown to respect Taln far more than they ever would Meridas. Meridas spoke to them as a nobleman commander; Taln spoke to them as a fellow solider.
On their third day out of Marcabe, a second, smaller group of men approached in the distance. There turned out to be about forty of them—men of Marcabe who had decided belatedly that they didn’t want to miss out on the chance to accompany Taln and Meridas on their quest to save Alethkar. Taln easily folded the newcomers into the main body of troops, giving only a passing comment to Jasnah that they would have to be certain to watch for settlements with which to trade, since the influx of men would drain their supplies.
They crossed the border into Riemak sometime during the fourth day. When they stopped for their midnight meal, one final group from Marcabe caught up with them. This one contained only twenty men, and Jasnah was surprised when Kemnar was the one who went out to meet them. He returned with a short, wiry peasant man, and both walked directly toward Jasnah.
“What is this?” Jasnah said, rousing from her seat—a shennah blanket thrown over a small boulder.
“My Lady,” Kemnar said, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “This is Fourth Citizen Nachen, owner of the Damp Stone—the finest tavern in Marcabe.”
“Citizen Nachen,” Jasnah said as the man bowed.
“Before we left,” Kemnar continued, “I mentioned to Nachen that someone might come looking for a group fitting our description. He was kind enough to keep watch for me.”
Jasnah frowned. She had given Kemnar no such command. However . . . “Since you’re here, citizen,” Jasnah said. “I assume that Kemnar’s prediction was well-founded?”
“Yes, my lady,” Nachen said. “They arrived a day and a half after the Bellow. Five of them, all on horses—lords I suspect, though they weren’t dressed in finery. They wore glyphs that proclaimed them to be of King Elhokar’s army, and said they were messengers on an important task. They fooled the rest of the town, but I lived in Vedenar during my youth—my elder brother married a Veden merchant’s daughter—and I recognize a Veden accent, even a subtle one. Besides, those men were too tall to be Aleths, and they seemed too blunt to be noblemen trained in one of our courts.”
Jasnah raised an eyebrow, surprised at the man’s knowledge. “What did they say?”
“Nothing overt, my lady,” Nachen said. “They kept to the bars, asking too many questions, listening a little too well, being a bit too free with their chips—kind of like Lord Kemnar here did, the first night he came to town.” Kemnar blushed at this, but Nachen continued. “Anyway, it was obvious who they were after. They asked too much about your ladyship and the Herald. They rode off that very night—heading back the way they came.”
Jasnah frowned. It appeared that at least one of Taln’s suspicions was no delusion. King Ahven was searching for them, and his soldiers had just found the proper trail.
“Go and make the same report to Lord Meridas,” she told the innkeeper. “But leave out Lord Kemnar’s part in it. Say you decided to warn us on your own.”
“Yes, my lady,” Nachen bowed again, then paused, looking back. “I didn’t believe you at first, my lady—I thought you were a fool for trying to pass your man off as another Herald pretender. But, well . . . if there are Vedens on our soil, the other things you said might be true too. That’s why I brought my cousins and sons with me. We won’t see our homeland taken by their like, no indeed.”
Jasnah blinked in surprise as the man bowed again, then moved off to obey her command. “What was that?” she demanded of Kemnar. “He thought I endorsed Taln’s lunacy?”
Kemnar shrugged. “You travel with him, and you obviously trust his judgement.”
“I don’t trust his judgement,” she snapped. “He’s insane!”
Kemnar just shrugged again.
Jasnah sighed. “Well, answer this, then. How did that man know where to find us? We told the villagers we were heading straight north.”
At this, Kemnar flushed slightly. “I told him,” he said. “I thought it better to risk having an informant behind, just in case. If no pursuit came, then I’d betrayed nothing. If it did come, then I figured we’d rather know for sure that we were being followed, even if it risked giving away our location.”
“You didn’t come to me with such postulations, Kemnar,” Jasnah said angrily.
“You’re the one who’s been telling me that I should be independent, now that I have a Blade,” he said. “Besides, you wouldn’t have let me tell him, no matter how trustworthy a man he was.”
“And I would have been right,” Jasnah said. “What if he’d led them straight to us?”
Kemnar shook his head. “You have to trust people sometimes, my lady.”
I did, Jasnah thought. I trusted my brother, and look where that got me. She shouldn’t have told Kemnar their path—she should have let everyone, including Meridas, think they were going north.
The Way of Kings Prime Page 60