Inda opened his hand.
“Here’s what I’ve found. The shearing is sometimes like the bee hum. You get a sense of the year ahead in their faces, the noise they make. How they act.”
Inda remembered that the next morning, when the academy except for the horsetails—who could be there but traditionally held themselves aloof—made a long double line in the big training paddock. At the far end, the staff waited with their scissors; the masters stood in lines behind the boys.
Everyone straightened up when Inda arrived, which made him want to laugh, so intense was his memory of running down that line. Back then these small, scrawny pups had seemed enormous and frightening.
Askan’s voice rose beyond the gate, which opened, and the cubs and ponytails gave a shout as the scrubs stumbled in. Down the line they staggered, eyes wide, mouths open, propelled by many hands. Those who fell were foot-nudged into rising, except for one boy who seemed too stunned to move. A huge ponytail hauled him to his feet, laughing, and the boy plunged on, the braid he was about to lose flapping on his skinny back.
All was noise, laughter. When the scrubs were gone, the masters divided their charges to begin the first lessons of the day. Inda found Gand and said, “Well? What did your bees hum?”
Gand snorted a laugh. “They’ll be a handful.”
Chapter Twenty-one
WHEN the signal-mirror flashed from the mountains heights above the Andahi Pass, the woman on duty at Castle Andahi’s south tower ran straight down, shedding rain at every step.Andahi’s
She burst into Ndand-Jarlan’s office, her eyes enormous. “Jarlan-Edli! King’s Rider in the pass,” she exclaimed.
Ndand suppressed the lurch of fear followed by self-mockery. “Probably some new instructions for Cama.” She forced herself to shrug though she knew that Cama had one of those necklace things that the king wore, which sent messages instantly. They’d use that, surely, if something terrible happened.
Not that the king could do anything from months’ hard ride away, but he and Cama both labored hard never to be taken by surprise again. She waved at the young woman, one of the new arrivals who had been sent with the new horse herd. The lookout retreated to her duty.
Ndand tried to get back to work, but found it impossible, so she prowled around the office, which was as close to the same as Liet-Jarlan’s as she could contrive though the former furnishings had either been destroyed or taken by the retreating Venn.
Ndand’s own bedroom had changed, so as not to remind her of her happy years with Flash. How weird life was! No sooner had she made everything be as different as possible, the desire to remember every detail of those good years intensified.
Cama understood. When he stayed over, they slept in his room, not hers. She could hardly articulate why—during her marriage with Flash they each had many lovers. Flash couldn’t possibly have existed without lovers—he was just that way. And he’d always been friendly and welcoming to hers—the ones they didn’t end up sharing. I loved him, too, when I was a horsetail, Cama had said. We all did.
She sank down onto a bench and had her cry. She’d got used to those. She just missed Flash so much! She’d taken to talking to his ghost, though she couldn’t see one. But just the idea that he might be there, smiling over her shoulder, watching over the home he had come to love . . .
The messenger was Vedrid, Evred’s pale-haired First Runner. That meant a message of royal importance. But Ndand and Vedrid knew one another. He pretended not to see her reddened eyes, and she pretended that nothing was amiss as she opened the door to his knock.
“Cama is doing his rounds in Idayago,” she began.
“My business is with you.” Vedrid smiled. “With you and one Hadand Tlen.”
“Cap’n Han?” Ndand gasped. She turned to the Runner who had brought him. “Run fetch Cap’n Han.”
Flash’s great-aunt-by-marriage, Ingrid Tlennen, appeared. The Andahi castle people had been glad when she showed up with a herd of new horses and a selected group of seasoned men and women, some with their children.
Everyone knew that Ingrid Tlennen had held Tlennen Castle in the bad old days when brigands had tried to cross the plains of Nelkereth and steal Marlovan horses; she had defended Tlennen Castle not once but several times. She had brought many of her tough relations from Nelkereth, including her sixteen-year-old niece. Her grizzled husband, the former Jarl, was the new Captain of the Arveas-Andahi Riders. They had retired when Hastrid Marlo-Vayir did to make way for young Jarls to serve a young king, but retirement had not really satisfied them. He, too, felt young again to have real work.
“The girl will be along quick,” Ingrid-Randviar said in a gruff voice. “You’ll pardon the dust and dirt, Herskalt?” She used the formal term for King’s Voice, asking a question without asking.
“I understand,” Vedrid said. He did not add, I’m not here as Herskalt, just as a Runner. So he was here as the King’s Voice, then.
Hands smoothed clothing, twitched sashes straight, all of it unconscious as they awaited what had to be news of great importance.
Before he could speak a cluster of girls clattered in, their high voices piping shrilly. That is, most talked, but the one who talked fastest was the most shrill. Vedrid picked out the shrill voice from the pack of girls. Where their skinny arms and legs, their sun-bleached flaxen braids were much alike, this one’s limbs were already forming into slender grace. Self-conscious grace, he noted, as she caught his eye and made a little business of fussing over her hair and clothes.
In contrast, “Cap’n Han” was indistinguishable from the others, a wiry small girl just starting to lengthen into coltishness, with a steady pair of light-colored eyes in an unremarkable round face. “Did you want me?” Her heartbeat pulsed in her skinny neck.
Vedrid said formally, “Evred-Harvaldar and Hadand-Gunvaer unite in sending this message to your guardian, Ndand-Edli, and to you, Hadand Tlen.” The child’s face paled at the sound of her formal name. “You are invited to present yourself to the royal city to train as a King’s Runner next spring. Will you be twelve by then?”
Han trembled. She flicked her thumb up, unable to speak. The other girls squealed and screeched, jumping up and down. The pretty one also squealed and jumped, but with a sidelong, speculative glance toward Vedrid.
Why her? Lnand was thinking. Why does Han get everything? I’m a leader, too! As soon as she could (for Ndand-Jarlan was about to send everyone back to work so she could write a letter to Hadand-Gunvaer before presiding over a meal in honor of the Herskalt) she sidled up and said in her sweetest voice, “We’re all so glad for Han, especially those of us who helped her so much last year during the war. Poor Han!” An affected laugh. “She almost . . .”
Lnand had been watching Han as she spoke. She wasn’t even sure she dared refer to the fact that Han had wanted to throw a bratty three-year-old off a bridge. Well, not quite, but almost.
Han gave Lnand one of those looks. Lnand tossed her braids back and ran off to fetch some seed-cakes. That stupid Herskalt wasn’t listening anyway.
Ndand gave the girls a little time to get over their excitement then said, “So no one has anything to do?”
The children knew that voice. They didn’t stop to answer—Cap’n Han included—until Ndand-Jarlan snagged her by the sleeve and kept her back.
“You should hear this part,” she said to Han, distracted for a moment by the child’s serious face. But her mind was too busy with questions to ponder it. “What does that entail? Are we to send dispositions? Keth didn’t have any. We still don’t have much.”
Vedrid said, “The Gunvaer-Edli says that all that will be supplied. You have only to get her to the royal city next spring. She can travel with Kethadrend when he goes to the academy. Until then, she is to work hard on her skills, including her Old Sartoran.”
Old Sartoran? But Han didn’t know any! Liet-Jarlan had only taught the Runners that. Gdand had learned a few lessons before the attack. Since then, the gi
rls hadn’t had any reading lessons. They’d all been too busy cleaning the castle, restoring it, and training in defense.
Cap’n Han’s dismay caused Ndand to chuckle. “She’ll know plenty by next spring.”
“So this is what you do,” Inda said.
As the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys watched, he demonstrated the aggressive feinting arc with the right hand and how the left came around to strike the opponent who had just shifted to avoid the feint.
The academy ponytails’ court was cramped, the boys crowded together. It still didn’t leave much space. So Inda hopped around to face the other way, becoming the opponent. “The right hand comes here.” He pointed toward his face. “Now, we usually block, and he knows that, which is why you walk right into that left hand, and the horsetails dump you right on your butts. And laugh,” Inda added, his tone as bitter as the ponytails all felt, though for different reasons.
For them, the matter was nothing more (or less) than the age-old arrogance of horsetails. Inda was annoyed because the few horsetails who’d stuck to the special lessons (all of them had come the first weeks, then fewer each succeeding Restday) seemed to be using what they learned to better their scragging techniques. Already there’d been two broken arms and several sprains, but because they all insisted they’d fallen down, the masters officially took no action.
Inda went down on one knee. He angled his body, left hand up and right jabbing straight toward the imagined enemy gut. “Down he goes instead.” He got to his feet, then surveyed the faces. “What? It’s not that hard.”
“But we never fight on our knees,” one expressed the general doubt.
Inda sighed. “Why not, if it works? Is it better to take a punch in the gut and listen to ’em laughing about what weeds you are?”
“No . . .”
A sudden confusion of shouts and cries halted the lesson. Inda straightened up, and the ponytails shut up, eyeing him as he became the Harskialdna in some way they couldn’t even define.
Inda’s annoyance fired to irritation. He’d worked this out carefully. The horsetails were on a three-day war game designed to sweat some of that swagger out of them. The cubs were doing an afternoon of ride-and-shoot. The scrubs, the only ones given liberty this Restday, were supposed to go with Askan to Daggers Drawn.
But the high, angry voices coming from the knife practice court were definitely scrubs.
Inda turned back to the ponytails. “You’ve got liberty. Better use it wiser than the scrubs over there.”
He vaulted over the two low fences and dashed around the rock wall dividing off the courts where steel weapons were permitted.
And here they were, sure enough. A cluster of small boys froze in place. This was the place duels were held these days. In the center stood the duelists, one short, with sun-streaky brown hair, the other already gaining bone and muscle, with pale yellow hair and a fierce blue gaze. For the fifth time this season, Keth Arveas-Andahi and Honeyboy Tya-Vayir.
Dauvid Tya-Vayir, Inda corrected himself as he glowered at them. Keth was a heartbreaking reminder of Flash, and Dauvid strong and hard-boned like the Tya-Vayirs. Dauvid’s scowl was a twin for Horsebutt’s expression, a unique combination of arrogance and petulance.
“Stables,” he said to the ring around the combatants. “The stable hands will enjoy their Restday liberty. You boys will groom and feed all the cubs’ mounts when they come in. Then the stalls.”
Mouths dropped open in dismay. One began to whine, “But we didn’t—”
“That’s not enough work?” he asked, and they took off.
“You two,” Inda said, “are going to be sweeping the parade court together.”
Keth blinked rapidly, struggling against tears. One cheekbone was rapidly swelling, and the knuckles on both hands as well. His clothes were awry, imprinted with dirt from the flagstones. Honeyboy, who loathed the nickname as passionately as his aunt and uncle had loathed being called Honeytongue and Horsebutt, scowled.
“It’s his fault!”
“Now.”
“But he keeps—”
“You want to sweep all the barracks, too, Tya-Vayir?”
Keth had run off in the direction of the storage shed. The Tya-Vayir boy flung himself after, cursing under his breath.
Inda started back in the direction of the headmaster’s office, where he knew he’d find a gathering of the masters who had liberty.
Askan dashed around the corner of the wall of the senior courtyard, and stopped him. “Another fight?” he asked. “I walked them all over to Daggers Drawn myself.”
Inda said, “As soon as you were gone a dozen of ’em slithered back to have their fight, just like they see the big boys doing.” He told Askan what he’d done. “You know what they were fighting about?” he asked. “I didn’t let ’em tell me. I wanted Tya-Vayir to see that they were getting the same treatment.”
Askan flung out his hand as he fell in step with Inda, palm down. “Tya-Vayir will have convinced himself that you gave Arveas-Andahi preferential treatment by the time we gather for Restday Drum no matter what anyone says. He arrived convinced that he’d be unfairly treated, and everyone else favored.”
Inda smacked the seniors’ wall. “Horsebutt.”
Askan flipped up the back of his hand, then looked around guiltily.
Inda also looked around. They were alone. “At least the scrubs aren’t putting one another in the lazaretto.”
“Not like our year, eh?” Askan said, rapping his knuckles lightly against Inda’s ribs with one hand, and with the other, touching his eye where Cama wore his eye patch.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be teaching any of the boys the Fox drills. Only if I don’t, when do they learn? What is it I’m doing wrong?”
“Nothing,” Askan exclaimed, hands outflung. “They’re just a pack of brats. Not a brain to share between ’em.”
Inda didn’t make any response, but he asked the same question of Headmaster Gand later on, after the boys had been dismissed from Restday Drum. The cubs and ponytails, tired from running around in the hot sun chasing flags, retired to their barracks to while away the time until the Daylast bell; the scrubs were turning out their barracks to scour it down and restore everything before sweeping their court on Askan’s orders.
“They all knew what was going on, even if they didn’t get into it,” Gand said. “In the meantime, they see that everyone gets equal punishment.”
“Because of Horsebutt,” Inda said.
Gand opened his hands. “His father was just the same, and the old Randael almost as bad. Grandfather rumored to be worse. Are you certain you don’t want to thrash those boys?”
Inda grimaced. “You can, if you want. I just can’t do it.” The thought of thrashing anyone always brought nightmarish flashes of Wafri and his tortures, something he never told anyone. Fighting, that was different. Someone tries to kill you, you kill him first. But thrashing some small boy who can’t defend himself? Fox does it, and they don’t come out the worse for it, Inda thought bleakly, feeling even more incompetent than he had earlier.
Gand took in that lowered gaze, the unhappy mouth, Inda’s loose hands, and said, “Another thing about the Tya-Vayirs. Not all, but most. They had a knack for making everyone seem smaller and meaner and worse than they actually are.”
Inda pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I thought there would be some Cama in that boy.”
“There might be yet.”
“He just looks at me with that sneer. ‘The King’s Claphair.’ I know what caused that first fight. Keth trying to defend my honor. It’s . . .” He kicked the wall. “It’s funny, but it’s not funny. The worst of it is, when I asked him, that boy didn’t even know what a claphair is! Seems to think it’s what we used to call a bootlick!”
“Horsebutt has that much of a sense of what’s right,” Gand said, unperturbed.
Inda got to his feet. “And I was going to reorganize the entire academy, from dawn to dusk, turning out . . .” Turning
out boys as tough and trained as Fox’s boys and girls in the fleet. Inda left, feeling like a failure.
While he was trudging back toward the pile of work awaiting him in the Harskialdna office, his sister Hadand entered Tdor’s office with a paper in hand.
Tdor looked up from a pile of exasperating tasks she’d put off for days. How many mattresses to reorder against next year and how many to try to repair in order to coax them through another year, shifting the night patrol around for three women who’d got sparring injuries, squabbles between two they’d intended to send north to reinforce Ndand-Jarlan’s women. Would they grow out of it, or would they be another problem if both went?
Tdor threw her pen down. “I saw your northern Runner ride in through the gates when I was going down to drill this morning,” she said. “Good news, I hope?”
“Good, and . . . odd. So far, Honeytongue—er, Starand has been on her best behavior up in Idayago,” Hadand said. “She loves Idayago and has taken to wearing their dresses. Eating their food. Some of the local women have been courting her favor, for whatever reason, and you know she’d love that.”
“If courting her favor turns her sweet, I hope they court her forever,” Tdor said. “Odd?”
“Fnor writes me that recently Mran started having nightmares about children and Venn and getting lost.”
Tdor was taken aback. “Mran? Children? So Buck and Fnor have given up on having an heir?”
Hadand stared out the window. “No, Fnor says they don’t talk about that at all, not even the prospect of trying the Birth Spell. But Mran asked if Inda got any letters, or messages, from Dag Signi the Venn.”
Signi. Tdor’s fingers busily straightened the already straight pile of papers as she remembered Inda’s occasional wistful questions about where Signi might be, what she might be doing, why didn’t she send a letter. It didn’t happen often, but each one made Tdor struggle against envy all over again. She was ashamed of that. I know Signi went away because of me. “Dag Signi? What could it mean?”