Inda pressed his heel palms into his eyes. “No. Yes. I think.” Yes, there it was, a vague memory, but a memory: Evred just before they reached Tya-Vayir for the triumph, after a pair of Runners caught up with them . . . and the bodies were unrecognizable. But one of them had an armband letter in his gear and mentioned his friend. If the Venn had captured that horse, we would never have learned their identities.
Inda looked up. “I take it I’ve got to write back. What does the Jarl want?” Another memory: Hali-Vayir, an older fellow, furtive in look, always standing just beyond Horsebutt Tya-Vayir.
“Wants to replace them with his own candidates. You and the king will have to decide that. The rest of these are all crowding rein for us to take sons of their heroic Riders.” Gand swept his hand over the other letters.
“Because promotion comes through the academy.” Inda tucked the letters into his sash. “I’ll ask Sp—Evred what he wants to do about Hali-Vayir.” He lifted his hand toward the residence.
Gand mimed the gesture, then indicated the Harskialdna office with his thumb. “You’re not going to use the office?”
Inda rubbed his head. “Just until spring I’ll stay upstairs. I don’t like that room. No air, no windows.”
Gand looked wry. “The former Harskialdna chose it for those reasons. He was always on the watch for spies.”
Inda leaned against the table. “If anyone wants to spy on me, they can come right in. We’ll put ’em to work. Here, d’you want to hear my ideas about what the boys will be learning?” He grinned with the enthusiasm he’d shown at ten. “I thought about it a lot. When I was running the army on the road north. D’you see, they were sloppy, needed work on . . .” He began to list a series of ideas.
Gand had spent half his life under the expectation that if war came, he would lead the dragoons in the first line of lancers. But the king had pulled him out of the field and set him to teach boys, and when war was declared set him to guard a castle at the border. During the next campaign, the new king had pulled him back to teach boys again.
And here—miraculously returned and covered with glory—was one of the first boys he’d taught.
A surviving dragoon captain from Gand’s generation had said of Inda after the Andahi battle, He may look like his skull’s empty, but it isn’t. You watch. He stands there at the back of morning drill watching, but one of these days he’ll go up front, and start in with the “Do it like this,” and next thing you know, every muscle has turned to knots and you can’t get out of your bunk next morning. That’s what he did to us all the way up north.
Gand held up a hand, and Inda stopped. “They’re not good ideas?” Inda asked, looking puzzled.
“You know they’re good. Problem isn’t with your ideas, it’s with the boys. Think back, Inda. Your year with me. How many of you were serious about what you did after the first few weeks? No, think past the punishments. You boys were serious about jokes, stings, getting away with extra sleep or less work, and with competition.”
Inda grimaced. “So we were pugs and slackers. But isn’t that what a change will do, get everyone thinking about the good of the kingdom?”
“In my long experience, the only time everyone is together working for a goal like the good of the kingdom is when there is an immediate threat or an immediate reward. Men or boys. Inda. This is all I ask. Give it a year. Watch them, listen to them. Get to know them and the ideas they bring here. What they have to unlearn before they can learn from us. Spend as much time with them as you will. Demonstrate. Impress them. But don’t change anything until next year.”
Inda’s carefully, lovingly thought-out schedule vanished like smoke. Gand had been his ideal all those years, his standards Inda’s. Inda was going to point that out, but he remembered himself as a scrub. How much of his later determination to keep himself to Gand’s standards was because he wanted—somehow—to become worthy enough to be permitted home?
If he hadn’t been exiled, would he be lazing around at Tenthen right now? No, I still would have been in the war. But maybe not leading it.
Then who would have led it? Inda grimaced again. Too much “what if.” He forced it out with a breath. “All right.”
“Good man.” Gand gave him a sympathetic half smile. “You’ll see everything differently, I believe, when we meet next year to have this conv—what is it?”
One of the King’s Runners-in-Training had slammed the door open. These boys were taught to be quiet and unobtrusive on duty before they were ever sent out. Gand’s irritation vanished when he saw the boy’s eyes wide and stark.
“King wants the Harskialdna.” The words came out in a rush.
Inda ran past the boy, jerked to a stop. “Where?” His hand came up before his face, the ring glinting. “Oh.” And he was off again, leaving the Runner-in-Training to follow after.
Inda had never used the ring before, though Evred had used his several times so far to find Inda. He skidded at intersections, hand before his face. The magical “snap” of the ring was quite distinct—more so than the internal tug that used to alert him to danger behind his head, when he’d carried the ghost of Dun the Carpenter, who (Inda only found out this past summer) had secretly been a King’s Runner before he died defending Inda.
The ring pulled him splashing through the puddles of a recent storm, past the kitchens from which emanated the smells of baking rye bread and cabbage-and-rice rolls simmering in garlic, and up the old tower steps through a building Inda still got lost in. All the halls and doors looked pretty much the same to him; he tried to orient himself by the rooftops of the academy, when he could find a western window.
Up more stairs and to another set of rooms that he identified by the tables and papers as the oath project rooms adjacent to the archive. His frustration at getting lost burned away at the sight of Evred’s wide green stare—green because his pupils had constricted to pinpoints. Next to him stood a tall, lean man whose gray coat was splashed to the thighs. Black curling hair, eye patch—
“Cama?” Inda exclaimed.
Cama struck his chest in silent salute, a corner of his hard mouth relaxing into an almost smile.
Inda turned from him to Hadand’s somber, tear-stained face. Finally Inda noticed her outstretched hands, from which hung two rumpled, ragged-edged pieces of crimson-and-gold cloth splattered with brown dirt.
No. Inda had spent too much time around spilled, stained, dried blood to mistake the sight of it now. “What’s that?”
Evred indicated a fourth person, whom Inda had glanced right past. This was a weedy boy of fourteen or fifteen at most, all awkward joints and knuckles, his unprepossessing face straining with his unsuccessful attempt to master awe and fear at being in the same breathing space as the king, the queen, and the Harskialdna, all at once.
“This is Radran. Connected to the Sindans and Tlens.” Evred-Harvaldar opened his palm toward the boy. “He is the one who rescued the banner.” He was about to say more, then thrust his hand toward the door. “Not in here.”
Out they went, Evred setting a pace that had the boy trotting to keep up.
Inda fell in beside Cama. When Inda left Iasca Leror as a bewildered eleven-year-old, Cama had been a somewhat bigger, morose boy with a voice like a kitten’s squeak. Inda had come back to find a tall, tough warrior who’d been serving as an unofficial Harskialdna in support of Evred’s cousins, Barend and Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir. The first time Cama spoke, Inda had been startled by his voice, which seemed to issue from the depths of a rocky abyss.
“Banner?” Inda asked him, and then he remembered where Cama had come from, and his heart squeezed in his chest. “Castle Andahi?”
“Yes.” Cama rasped the word.
Evred walked fast, leading the way down and down, stopping just inside the throne room. There he lifted his gaze to the high walls, the weak morning light slanting down through the clerestory windows onto the banners on the juts of the walls that formed the gallery, just below the windows.
; Evred knew each banner. When they were young his father had taken him and his brother into the throne room to discuss the banners’ histories, praising his sons when they could later name them off. Evred knew whose House each belonged to, who had carried it in what battle, and who had brought it back.
He turned to Hadand, whose uplifted face implored.
He gestured to the boy. “Radran. Tell the Harskialdna-Dal.”
The boy’s neck knuckle bobbed as he swallowed painfully. “Everything?”
Cama spoke across the banner in Hadand’s outstretched hands. “Inda, the Jarlan sent Radran here up onto the mountain above the harbor. To count the enemy ships. He had a glass. He could look down at the castle. Saw the entire attack. Since he had orders and no weapons, he stayed put.”
The boy trembled, swallowing convulsively, his lowered gaze stricken.
“Later—after the army marched up the pass—he sneaked down and retrieved the banner. Though the Venn still held the castle.”
Inda whistled. “You went inside with the Venn in possession?”
“I know the castle,” the boy mumbled. “Knew the traps. They were busy down below. The banner was on the gate-side sentry walk.”
Hadand spoke for the first time. “Did you see her die?”
The boy’s face blanched. “Yes. It was at the end.” And because the adults all waited, he gripped himself hard, trying to keep his voice from squeaking. “At first they killed everyone soon’s they could. But on the second day they brought Liet-Jarlan out onto the sentry walk. Took three of them, even with her tied up.” He swallowed, his face slick with sweat.
Cama took pity on him. “They got her down, kicked her around. Then cut her arms off. Tied her to the counterweight windlass for the inner portcullis.”
Radran said, “They made her watch. When they brought out the last—” His throat worked, and his head dropped forward.
Cama finished. “The last three women, and one of the girls. They hacked them up, and when they were dead, they put out the Jarlan’s eyes. Then they loosed her to run a knife gautlet, but she dodged them and threw herself over the parapet. Cursing them all the way down.”
Radran said grittily, “It’s their blood on the banner. Hers and . . .” He lost his voice again trying to name them.
“And the last four,” Cama said.
Hadand’s eyes had closed, minute tremors running through her at each act of cruelty. Inda’s recoil was equally subliminal, mostly signaled in the change of his color and his breath.
Evred gripped his hands tightly behind him, then turned away from those waiting gazes, and faced upward again. The banners were evenly spaced, chosen by his forefathers. He’d never thought to touch them, thought that they would hang there reflecting the glory of his family for centuries. All his early life he’d accepted that glory unquestioned. Now most of the banners seemed little more than boastful shouts after ephemera; this banner in Hadand’s hands signified the fullest measure of loyalty and bravery. Even though the battle was lost. Because it was lost. It was hopeless from the beginning, yet each of those women and girls had fought to the terrible end in hopes of keeping off the inevitable just that much longer, keeping faith that he—Evred—was in turn keeping faith with them at the other end of the pass.
This banner was not a testament to Montrei-Vayir glory, but to honor, to faith in oaths to Iasca Leror.
He looked around, and knew his instinct was right. This had been the right place to hear the terrible history, and so it was the right place for the banner to come to rest. “That one there, by the throne. My grandfather brought back the Olaran banner he took from Ala Larkadhe. I think it has served its purpose. This banner will replace it. And at Convocation, we will sing Liet-Jarlan Deheldegarthe and all her women.”
He saw in Inda’s and Cama’s faces, and in Hadand’s and Radran’s, that this was right.
Chapter Nine
INDA to Tau:
Today is New Year’s Firstday. Did you know that? We never paid attention at sea. Evred had them hang up that banner I told you about. Cama told the Jarls what happened. Radran was with the Runners. E. thought Rad should have the honor of telling. I could see it, how sick it made him. Maybe only I could see it. I feel that way about what happened when I was Wafri’s prisoner in Ymar. I don’t want to say it out loud.
E. said R. could come here—he could be what he wants. He wants to be Cama’s Rider. He told me he keeps having bad dreams the Venn ships will come back. He thought the dreams meant he was a coward. I told him two of my bad dreams. I feel stupid when people say “You? You are so brave,” because I don’t feel brave, I don’t even know what brave is. Well, Cama is brave. Hadand says I am stubborn. She says she is, too, that we are a stubborn family. It makes sense to me. Rad said if he’s a Rider, he will be ready if the Venn come back.
After they put the banner on the wall, we all made our oaths, me first. I was glad I had that practice before we reached Ala Larkadhe, when I became Harskialdna. Remember that? Barend’s & my fight, just like at Freedom. So I didn’t stumble & make them laugh. Cama was next, & he got a new name, to match his territory: Idayago-Vayir. He also got the honor accolade—he doesn’t have to return for Convocation for five years. Only the old men remember the old days when the king was a Sieraec and they had to attend Convocation much less often, unless they had business, or to be sworn.) Horsebutt looked like he’d bitten into a wormy apple. It was sadder when Cherry-Stripe spoke for Buck & then Branid for my father. They each got 2 year accolades, as did the Yvana-Vayir boys. I was sorry I won’t see Cherry-Stripe or Buck for 2 years.
Debt day tomorrow. No duties for me. Then judgment days. Evred changed his mind about telling me what to expect. Now he wants me to listen, & after it’s all over, tell what I saw.
When I was small Tanrid told me Conv. meant Jarls going to the royal city, spending a day or so saying vows & paying taxes, then swilling & swaggering for the rest of the week. Maybe watching the boys do exhibitions so they could yap about how much better their boy was than anyone else’s. I thought Tanrid knew everything. He didn’t know a horse fart about laws & trade. They might be swilling & swaggering nights, but days all the rest of that week is when the Jarls will sit in judgment on each other. They wait a whole year to go at each other, except when it’s treason like Hawkeye’s dad killing the king.
Evred says we’ve got no treasury. Entire coast needs rebuilding & Jarls will be like wolves on a fox. Fox. I sure hope my plan with Barend works.
I read your last note to Evred. He laughed at that bit about the sailor telling the other how to ride a horse. Wooden horses, maybe. Laughing is good, T. says. E. doesn’t sleep, H. says. True. His lights are burning when T. & I go to bed, & when I get up in the mornings, it’s usually to find he’s already out & about. I’ll be glad when Conv. is over.
Remember Gutless, Walic’s first mate? Horsebutt’s grin reminds me of him. Same kind of mind? If you were here you cd. tell me. H. never stopped grinning when the Jarls spoke their vows. But made no trouble. Been a lick so far.
Inda’s toes ached. He forced himself upright again. His place as Harskialdna was to the left of the throne, sword at hand. Purely symbolic, Evred had said: in the unlikelihood of an argument turning violent, the Guards would take care of it. But he wanted Inda there, a Harskialdna Sigun for all to see.
Inda was used to long watches on deck, though there he could keep moving. The problem was how intent he got in following the swift interchanges of debate. He kept unconsciously leaning forward until his toes cramped.
Branid, as heir to a prince, sat on the front bench next to Cassad, who was first in rank among the Jarls, with the quiet, anxious Yvana-Vayir twins on his other side. Branid had been so perfectly behaved that Inda’d scarcely been aware of him since his arrival two days before Convocation.
Branid stirred, looking uneasy, and Inda shifted his glance away. Weird, that, how you’d just feel someone staring at you even if you couldn’t see who.
&nb
sp; There was Cherry-Stripe on the Marlo-Vayir bench, arms crossed, a wicked scowl on his face that made him look older than Buck. None of the Jarls had made any fuss at all about the new oaths and their requirements. Hadand had said that the word about the oath project surely had spread all over the country. Tdor thought that the victory in the north was responsible. So debt day passed with each Jarl accepting his new responsibilities, and not a murmur.
But today?
Convocation’s judgment day had begun with four judgment calls against Marlo-Vayir, three of them entered by Horsebutt Tya-Vayir. That had set off a shouting match of accusations of Tya-Vayir against Marlo-Vayir for owed horses, men, gear, damages—the accusations measured in the swing of the Yvana-Vayir twins’ faces from side to side as they watched the older men brangle. Inda had stopped listening to them hectoring one another, waving papers from old archives, while Runners ran out and came back with corroborative (or corrective) papers from the project room, and Evred sat on the throne with his shuttered expression.
. . . I always thought the king could do anything he wanted. The Jarls all sit in judgment on themselves in anything but treason. & then they have to be present to see the king’s judgment carried out. Never thought about what any of that meant. You never thought almost 20 fellows cd. sound like 60 wolves over one kill till you heard them yapping.
I also thought it was simple, 1 man per territory, with 1 vote. But Nelkereth has a “guardian” instead of a Jarl, & can only vote on land or horse matters. Tlen-Sindan-An is supposed to be a single jarlate, but both Sindan-An & Tlen have 2 votes on certain things. Then for every vote the herald always calls out “Montredavan-An” & Evred has to say “In Exile.” I can imagine what Fox wd. say to that. Well, Cama has to stand for his new territory & little Keth’s. so he gets 2 votes. I can see how much Ola-Vayir hates that, at least as much as Cama’s own brother does . . .