Women led them to other women who they felt would embrace the cause, and so the group swelled in number every day. The strange thing was, Atanial had realized one night, by now they could hardly be secret, and yet at least so far, no one seemed to have sent word to the king. She did not know if all Canardan’s spies were at the war game, or if some had quietly changed their minds about what side they were on.
Atanial returned Hilna’s bow as best she could from the back of a horse, then said, “May we speak privately?”
Hilna rubbed her forehead. “I suppose. But what shall I do about all these people?”
“Most of them brought their own journey bread. And we’ve been buying fruit along he way.” Atanial did not mention that she alone hadn’t come prepared. Most of the women shared, but Atanial did not like taking too much. She was hungry.
Hilna shaded her eyes to ward drops of cold rain. Among those faces, most of them her age or older, and a very few young, were a couple of guild mistresses, a baroness who had inherited her title in her own right and at least one garrison captain’s wife. “I think you all had better come inside.” She cast a glance at her sister. “We can fit you into the hall out of the weather.”
“And the sun room too. This way.” Pirie gestured to the women accompanying Atanial. “I’ll see to food and drink for those who need it.”
“Princess, you come with me, if you will.” Hilna waited at the door.
Atanial dismounted with a smothered woof and tried to be delicate about rubbing her inner thighs as she walked stiffly behind her hostesses. A smothered snicker from behind testified to her success, before the last of the women vanished into what appeared to be a parlor with plastered and whitewashed walls; they moved through that to the rest of the ground floor of the castle beyond.
But Hilna did not crack a smile as she stalked into a low entry, all of it bare swept stone, the enticing smell of baking apple tarts drifting from somewhere. Atanial’s stomach rumbled.
A sharp turn, up a short stairway to a room off a landing, and the smell was cut off by a thick wooden door swinging shut. Hilna indicated a massive wing-backed chair that had to be a hundred years old at least. Atanial winced at the prospect of her aching hips dealing with that ungiving wood. She sighed in relief when she spotted a newly stuffed cushion on its seat, embroidered somewhat crookedly with tulips and bluebells. There was another such chair, both angled toward a fireplace where a good fire already burned.
Hilna perched on the edge of one and Atanial collapsed into the other, plopping her cold feet onto the fender.
“I’ll try to be brief.” Inwardly she resisted the strong desire to sleep here for at least a year. “You don’t have to answer. I don’t want to put you into a bad position. But Mistress Silvag insisted we should stop here and at least let you know what we’re doing. Whatever you decide to do about it, considering who you are married to. Or rather, who your husband is brother to.”
“Dannath,” Hilna breathed.
“I don’t know how much you know, but the evidence is clear that Dannath Randart and the king will be invading Locan Jora in the spring.” Atanial braced for—anything. But oh, she did so hope she wasn’t going to have to leap to her aching feet and bucket down those stone steps and back onto that horse, sword-waving women on her heels.
Hilna’s mouth tightened.
“I know the reasons put forward in favor,” Atanial said swiftly. “Locan Jora has been part of Khanerenth for most of recorded history. Though the outer borders have danced about quite a bit from generation to generation. I know there are people who lost their homes when the takeover happened. I know they want their ancestral homes back. I know that there is a belief that the economy will vastly improve, that there will be land and titles for the loyal, that this and that will all make things better. But. I really want you to consider the cost. The real cost. Which is lives. Not necessarily ours, but young people’s, like your son’s. Because he’s supposed to be leading this war, isn’t he?”
Hilna’s eyes narrowed.
“At least, he’ll be right at the front, with all the banners and so forth, but we know who will really be in command.” Atanial paused, wondering if she’d gone too far.
Hilna rocked on her chair while rain tapped at the leaded glass window in the deep stone embrasure, and the fire on the hearth crackled and snapped. “If I interfere, I’ll never see my son again. It’s rare enough I see him now. Either Damedran or my husband, Orthan.”
Atanial leaned forward. “Tell me.”
Hilna brushed a strand of hair off her forehead with trembling fingers. “What is to tell? I get to see him once a year. If that. Then he pushes me away with Uncle Dannath says I’m too soft. Uncle Dannath says after every visit home, always something aimed at me. My husband, too. Dannath says Damedran has slid back into boy habits, and requires a week of drills to toughen him back up again.”
“So you disagree with their goals?”
“If I wished to be known as a traitor,” she retorted. “I cannot have an opinion that differs from Dannath’s. None of us can. Why do you think I never adopted into the Randart family? It was the one single thing I could keep of my own, my family. Even this barony is nothing but an air title—Orthan saying, often and often, that soon we’ll live in Vadnais, we’ll have a real title, and this castle, which I have spent the past fifteen years making into a home, is good enough for Pirie and Wolfie.”
Atanial had used the past two or three days forming logic chains to argue against every conceivable point of view against an invasion. She had never expected this reaction.
“What would you like to do?”
Hilna dashed her wrist angrily over her eyes. “Is that meant as a jab? No, I see by your face it isn’t. But how can you ask that, knowing Dannath? Oh, I knew from the very start that Orthan was loyal to his brother, but in those days the goal was rebuilding the army, which had gotten slack, with pilferage and cronyism and scandalous behavior shrugged at in the upper ranks. That’s how we lost half the kingdom in the first place! But after Damedran was born, there were more and more hints about royal vision and royal gifts and…”
She wiped her eyes again, frowning down into the fire. “About five years ago, I realized they were not talking about the king. They meant Dami. And at first I conceded, with a mother’s pride. I thought he’d make a fine king. I didn’t consider how he might get there.” She looked up, saying fiercely, “And it’s as well I conceded, because I vow as sure as I sit here otherwise, Dannath would have seen to it something happened to me. He’s never had any use for women—for anyone, really—unless they can fight.”
Atanial nodded. “Or serve. But not think. That seems to go for men too.”
“Yes. Orthan is plenty smart, and loyal, but he’s no grand thinker. So what is it you are doing?”
“We are marching across the kingdom.” Atanial swept her arm wide. “Where, you shall see. None of the other women know the destination, only that I strongly expect that we will meet the king there, and War Commander Randart. I knew that nothing I did on my own would ever make any difference. But if there were enough of us, maybe we could get them at least to listen?”
Hilna let out her breath in a slow, shaky sigh. “I know I sound like a coward, and perhaps I am one. If I ever cross Dannath, even in a small thing, I will lose my son altogether. And what you are suggesting is no small thing. I shall have to think.”
“Fair enough.”
“There are two things I will say. First, I will only discuss it with Pirie. And maybe one other friend who I think will be sympathetic. But I’m not sending any messages to Orthan.” She gave a small sigh. “I could never force him to choose between his brother and—well, leave it at that. I’m mum. Best that way.”
Atanial gestured her thanks.
“Second, if you can convince Starveas Kender to join you, she might bring some of the old Joran nobility over. Her husband loved marrying an old noble family with a title, even if deposed. The Kenders hav
e their title by courtesy, as do all the old Joran nobility. You know that.” She scarcely paused for Atanial to assent. “I know that he can hardly wait for the invasion to be over, so they can lord it once again on the other side of the mountains. But she’s worried. Not only about Ban. Also about her daughter Mirnic, who will be sent with the mages. Who end up as targets as often as the warriors.”
“I would love to, but I don’t dare go back to Vadnais. It was too difficult to get past the guard on my way out. I don’t believe I’d make it back in without being caught.”
“The Kenders don’t live in the royal city,” Hilna exclaimed. “They live in Ellir. They left that several weeks ago, knowing about the siege running into winter, and how those with castles along the west will all go home, taking sizable portions of the army with them for the winter. The Kenders are staying with her cousin, the Duchess of Frazhan. They stopped here day before yesterday.”
“Frazhan on the border,” Atanial murmured.
“They have that wonderful old castle directly across the river valley from Ivory Mountain.”
“Ahhhhh.” Atanial smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Magister Zhavic watched the king rub his forehead with tense fingers, the ruby in his ring winking and glittering.
He looked up wearily. “Zhavic. I know you don’t trust my war commander. Neither of you has ever even tried to comprehend the other, it seems to me. Yet you are loyal and dedicated. So why can’t you see that we must work together now? We cannot afford strife among ourselves.”
Zhavic struggled to suppress his annoyance. It wasn’t as if this reaction of the king’s was unexpected. “Write to him, your majesty,” he urged, keeping his voice low, quiet. “Please. If there is a reasonable explanation, I vow I will never again bring forward any suspicions.” Not without undeniable proof, anyway.
The king let out a long-suffering sigh, and with a spurt of ill-tempered impatience, threw aside a couple of stacks of papers in search of one of the small slips he used for the magic-transfer box.
Zhavic bent, picked up the snow of papers on the floor and returned them, glancing covertly at the top of each. Most of them were supply lists, but one was from the Skate’s infamous Captain Bragail, on which Zhavic glimpsed the phrase…of the pirate absolutely no sign.
The king extricated a small piece of paper, picked up his pen, dipped it, and frowned at the mage. “What am I asking again?”
“I do not know what questions you deem appropriate, your majesty, but the questions that occur to me are why he considered it necessary to send his nephew and several senior cadets away from the siege on a secret mission, and why he suddenly had to ride off, again without telling anyone.”
The king frowned down at the pen, apparently not seeing the slow formation of a droplet of ink. It was about to splash on the paper when he threw the pen into the well and leaned back in his chair. “You know, it really is odd, when I think about it. He mentioned nothing of any of these things in his report last night. I thought Damedran was with the other cadets. And that Randart himself was overseeing things at Cheslan Castle.”
Zhavic put his hands behind his back lest they betray him. Long years had taught him to keep his face impervious, but the surge of triumph burning through him made him almost shaky.
The king nipped up his pen. He wrote in a fast scrawl, folded the paper, shoved it into the box without waiting for the ink to dry and tapped it. He looked up, eyes narrowed. “If there is a good explanation I will hold you to your promise.”
“If there is a good explanation, I shall be satisfied, that is a vow. You know I only have the good of the kingdom in mind—”
“Yes, yes, everyone always has the good of the kingdom in mind, especially when they begin arguing with me.” Canardan waved a hand to cut off the flow of self-justification. He uttered a sharp laugh. “If you didn’t, you would hardly be alive to argue.”
The implied threat silenced the mage.
Canardan felt the inner click of the message-box magic, which was somewhat of a relief. Dannath had, so far, always responded immediately.
He flipped it open and pulled out the folded square. Randart’s neat writing filled the entire paper. For a month we have been tracking Atanial’s daughter Sasharia on your orders earlier in the summer. Damedran has her now. I am in Ambais to meet him. Planned to have her in hand before sending my report.
Canardan laughed, then flicked the paper in Zhavic’s direction. He watched the master mage read it.
“What’s the matter now?” Canardan demanded when the mage handed back the paper, his lips tightly closed.
Zhavic looked out the window as rain began tapping the glass. “A month. And you didn’t know. I wonder if he really was going to tell you when he did get hold of her.”
Canardan threw the pen down. “Damnation, we’re right back to where we were! Why not? What else would he do with her?”
“Perran believes that she might be coerced into a match with Damedran. So that he could become…the heir.”
“That again.”
Canardan’s grim look sent a spurt of pleasure through Zhavic. The mages didn’t believe any such thing. Randart’s mind did not run to marriages. But the king’s did. And reminding him of the Randarts’ suspected plot to put Damedran on the throne was always a good idea.
Zhavic went on in a slow, ruminative voice, as if he were thinking, though he and Perran had rehearsed this interview half a dozen times. “I think Perran’s wrong. I wonder if Randart means to assassinate her. The war commander’s thinking appears to be of military and political advantage, not magical.”
Canardan frowned at the mage. “What are you talking about?”
“Why else would he take so long to secure her and without letting you know? If he wanted to find out where she was going-—”
“The cook! She was the cook!” The king snapped his fingers. “Jehan had her briefly. Randart went out to search Jehan’s yacht and didn’t find her. I assumed because the girl had slipped Jehan’s grip before Randart showed up. But now I think Jehan was lying to Randart. And she was there all along. Which changes everything.” The king drew in a slow breath. “Only which way?”
“What?” Zhavic’s voice, which was far more revealing than his face, lost the smoothness of rehearsed musing and revealed genuine spontaneity. “Princess Atanial’s daughter is a cook?”
The king snorted a not-quite-laugh. “You don’t remember? I do. I’ve always had a head for details. Which, one could argue, is what kingship is. The tall female cook on Jehan’s yacht, with the flour all over her face so no one saw what she looked like—” He turned his head, spoke sharply. “Page!”
The runner on duty outside the king’s study opened the door.
“Request Prince Jehan to attend me for an immediate interview.” He turned back to Zhavic. “Finish your point.”
Magister Zhavic had been wondering how to get back to it. He smiled. “Well. If you consider she was last known aboard the pirate ship, and presumably managed to escape somewhere along the coast—”
“Or was rescued by a very romantic prince, let us say.”
Zhavic blinked, and the look he gave the king caused Canardan to laugh out loud.
“No, I have not lost my wits. Though I might be chasing down the wrong trail. We’ll know in a moment. Go on. So Atanial’s daughter escapes on the coast…”
“…then turns up in Bar Larsca, what kind of a vector, as the military term it, does that give you?”
The king rubbed his chin, mentally reviewing the map. “Not the siege, though she’s close. That makes no sense.”
“Think magic, not military,” Zhavic urged. “Remember who her father was. Though you were not trained, surely your first wife told you some things about the magical part of our history—”
“Ivory Mountain?” the king asked and watched the mage’s face smooth into blandness. “But why? That’s an old morvende geliath, empty for centuries. Even I know that.”
/> As usual, Zhavic’s voice betrayed him. “If Mathias is alive, it could be that he is hiding there, beyond time.”
Canardan rapped his knuckles on the table. “How do you get to that conclusion?”
“While guarding the old World Gate site, Perran decided to do a thorough search of the castle. He found a couple of hidden chambers, and one of them held some of Glathan’s old papers. Nothing was astoundingly revealing, or we would have reported instantly to you,” Zhavic added quickly. “But in a chest Glathan had stored an old book on morvende geliaths. That book is well known to mages. Most of us have a copy. At first Perran didn’t even look through it. But as time went on and he had finished his search, he decided to go through all the books and papers in a methodical way. In that book, the reference to Ivory Mountain had a scribble next to it, in some kind of code.”
“So you think this girl might go to Ivory Mountain and free Math? But she’s not a mage.”
“We know she was taught at least one difficult spell.”
Canardan nodded slowly. He was beginning to wish he’d listened to Dannath in those early days. His reasoning was clear, if brutal. A quick, clean death for Math, and the problem goes away. Kill the woman too, or send her back to her own world. Keep the girl and raise her to marry the heir. The popular but incompetent family Zhavalieshin sinks into memory, along with incompetent royal families of the past.
Canardan ran his thumb back and forth along Randart’s note, remembering how he’d steeled himself to see it through. All those clear reasons Mathias should die: most important, his incompetence as king. Except at this remove, Canardan knew that most of Mathias’s supposed incompetence had actually been attempts to cope with the mess the old king had made of things.