Crown Duel

  As we stopped by the empty kitchen and laid the Fire Sticks on the great table, I made a last attempt at hope. “But Papa was so certain they’d believe in our cause.”

  “Mercenaries don’t have causes—or they wouldn’t be swords for hire,” Bran retorted. “We really need someone trained to captain our people and teach us fighting skills.”

  “We can’t hire anyone else. We haven’t the gold,” I said. “I just spent two days trying to work around the sums we had to send for the taxes.”

  Bran raised his hands. “Then we are on our own, sister.”

  I groaned as we walked the last few steps to the old stewards’ parlor, and I swatted aside the hanging. Then I stopped again and groaned louder. I’d forgotten the broken window. All my careful piles of paper were strewn around the room like so much snow.

  Bran took in the mess and scratched his head. “I sure hope you wrote down your figures,” he said with a rueful smile.

  “Of course I didn’t,” I muttered.

  He slewed around and stared at me. “You didn’t?”

  “No. I hate writing. It’s slow, and my letters are still ill formed, and the ink blobs up, and my fingers get stiff in the cold. I simply separated all the villages’ lists of resources and figured out who could give a bit more. Those papers went in one pile. The villages that are overreached went in another pile. I made mental trades in my mind until I managed to match the totals demanded by Galdran. Then I was going to find Oria and tell it all to her so she could write it down.” I shrugged.

  Though I’d only learned to read and write the year before, it was I who kept track of our careful hoard of supplies, and the taxes, and the plans—and now all my work was scattered over the stone floor of the room.

  We stared until the plop-plop of raindrops coming through the broken window and landing on the papers forced us into action.

  Working together, we soon got all the papers picked up. Bran silently gave me his stack, and I pressed them all tightly against me. “I still have approximate totals in my head,” I assured him. “I’ll find Oria and get her to write it out, and we can see where we are. We’ll be all right, Bran. We will.” I wanted desperately to see that stricken look ease—or I would begin crying all over again.

  Bran lifted his gaze from the mess of rain-spattered papers in my arms and smiled crookedly. “A horse blanket, Mel?”

  I remembered what I was wearing. “It tore in half when Hrani tried washing it. She was going to mend it. This piece was too small for a horse, but it was just right for me.”

  Bran laughed a little unsteadily. “Mel. A horse blanket.”

  “Well, it’s clean,” I said defensively. “Was—at least, it doesn’t smell of horse.”

  Bran dropped onto the three-legged stool, still laughing, but it was a strange, wheezy sort of laugh. “A countess wearing a horse blanket and a count who hates fighting, leading a war against a wicked king who has the largest army the kingdom has ever known. What’s to become of us, Mel?”

  I knelt down—carefully, because of the broken crockery—set my papers aside, and took his hands. “One thing I’ve learned about doing the figures: You don’t solve the problem all at once, or it’s like being caught in a spring flood under a downpour. You solve the problem in pieces…We’ll send our letter to the king. Maybe Galdran will actually listen, and abide by the Covenant, and ease taxes, so we don’t have to go to war. But if he doesn’t, some of those courtiers ought to agree with us—they can’t all be Galdran’s toadies—which means we’ll surely get allies. Then we’ll gather the last of our supplies. And then…”

  “And then?” Bran repeated, his hands on his knees. His dark blue eyes seemed darker with the intensity of his emotions.

  “And then…” I faltered, feeling overwhelmed with my own emotions. I took a deep breath, reminding myself of my own advice. Pieces. Break it all into small pieces. “And then, if Galdran attacks us, we’ll fight. Like I said, maybe we’ll have help. The courtiers will see it in Papa’s letter to the king: We are not doing this for ourselves. We’re doing it to protect the Hill Folk, for if Papa is right, and Galdran’s cousin wants to break the Covenant and start chopping down the great trees again, then the Hill Folk will have nowhere to live. And we’re doing it for our people—though not just them. For all the people in the kingdom who’ve had to pay those harsh taxes in order to build Galdran that big army.”

  Branaric got to his feet. “You’re right. In pieces. I’ll remember that…Let’s get through today first. We have to tell everyone in the village about Papa, and send messengers throughout Tlanth, and get ready for the funeral fire.”

  My first impulse was to run and hide, for I did not look forward to facing all that pity. But it had to be done—and we had to do it together.

  And afterward, when the village was quiet and lights went out, I could slip out of the castle and run up the mountainside to where I could hear the reed flutes mourning.

  The Hill Folk would emerge, looking a little like walking trees in the moonlight, and wordlessly, accompanied by their strange music—which was a kind of magic in itself—we would dance to somber cadence, sharing memory, and grief, and promise.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A month later Julen, Oria, Hrani the weaver, and I gathered in the kitchen—the only warm room in the castle—and studied Bran from all angles.

  He flushed with embarrassment but turned around willingly enough while we judged the fit of the tunic Hrani had remade for him. The old green velvet, left from Papa’s wardrobe, nicely set off Bran’s tall, rangy build. His face was long and sharp boned, like Father’s had been.

  The only features Bran and I shared were wide-spaced dark blue eyes and wavy red-brown hair—both inherited from our mother. The green of the tunic was just right for his coloring.

  “This tunic might not be the fashion—” Julen began.

  “Of course it’s not the fashion,” Oria cut in, her dark eyes and uplifted chin expressing her scorn for the vagaries of courtiers. “When from all accounts their fashions change from week to week—maybe day to day.”

  “This tunic might not be the fashion,” her mother repeated as if Oria had not spoken, “but it looks good. And wear your hair tied, not loose or braided. Better stay with the simple styles than look foolish in what might be old styles.”

  Bran shrugged. He had as little interest in clothing as I did. “As long as they don’t take one look and laugh me out into the snow, I’m content.” He turned to me. “But I can’t help wishing you were going. You’ve a much quicker mind than I have.”

  Quick to laugh, quick to act—and much too quick to judge. How many times had I heard that warning? I stole a peek at Julen, who pursed her lips but said nothing.

  I shook my head. “No, no, you got all the charm in this family—along with the imposing height. All I got was the temper. This is a mission to win allies, not enemies, and if they laughed me out into the snow, you know I’d go right back at them, sword in hand, and try to make them listen!”

  Bran and Oria laughed, and even Julen smiled. I crossed my arms. “You know it’s true.”

  “Of course,” Bran agreed. “That’s why it’s funny. I can just see you taking on a palace full of sniffy courtiers twice your size, as if they were a pack of unruly pups—”

  “Here, my lord, try the blue one now,” Julen said. Despite the title—which she had insisted on using since Father’s death—her tone was very much like the one she reserved for little Calaub and his urchin friends. “And that’s enough nonsense. You’ll do well if you go down to those barons and talk like you mean it. And you, my lady,” she rounded on me, “if you wish to be helpful, you can see if Selfan has finished resoling the blackweave boots.”

  I got up, knowing a dismissal when I heard one.

  Oria started after me but paused at the door, a considering expression on her pretty face. I glanced back in question, but the only thing to see was Bran unlacing his tunic as he talked to Julen about those boo
ts.

  Oria gave a tiny shrug and pushed me out the door.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  Her dark eyes crinkled with rueful humor. “Mama is very cross, isn’t she? I don’t think she wants your brother going to the lowlands.”

  It was not quite an answer, but during the last couple of years I’d gotten used to Oria’s occasional mysterious evasions. “Can’t be helped. Azmus wrote out copies of our letter to the king and gave them to prominent courtiers, but not one response have we received. It’s time to get some allies with face-to-face meetings, or we’re finished before we even start.”

  She pursed her lips, the humor gone. “I made him up some good things to eat,” she said. “Let me fetch the pack.”

  Later we stood in the castle courtyard as Branaric finished tying his travel gear onto the saddle of his horse. Then he mounted, gave us a quick salute, and soon was gone from sight.

  He didn’t like saying farewells any more than I did. I retreated into the castle, and wandered from room to empty room as cold drafts of wintry wind chilled my face. Inevitably my path brought me to the library, empty these ten years. Black scorch marks still stained the walls and ceiling, potent reminders of the terrible night we found out about my mother’s death. Crying in rage, my father had stamped into this room, where generations of Astiars had stored their gathered knowledge, and deliberately—one book at a time—set it all ablaze. The only books that had escaped were a half dozen dull tomes in the schoolroom.

  After, Father had retreated to his tower, and never again referred to that night. But his determination to see Galdran toppled from the throne had altered from desire to obsession.

  I paced the perimeter of the room, scowling at the grimy ash-blackened stones, my mood dark.

  Oria’s voice broke my reverie. “Amazing, isn’t it, how one can live in a mess and never really notice it? Perhaps we ought to scour these rooms out come spring.”

  I turned around. Oria stood in the open doorway—the hanging had rotted entirely a few years before. “Why? The weather will just blow more leaves in, and we can’t afford windows.”

  “The wind won’t blow ten years’ worth in at once,” Oria said practically.

  I looked around, wondering why I resisted the idea. Was this room a kind of monument? Except I knew my mother would not have liked a burnt, blackened room as a memorial. In her day, the furnishings might have been old and worn, for taxes even then had been fierce, but each table and cushion and candlestick had been mended and polished, and the castle had been cozy and clean and full of flowers. And this room…

  “She loved books,” I said tentatively, exploring the idea. “It was Papa who declared war on them, just as he did on Galdran. I really don’t know why Papa burned this room. Nor do I know how to find out.” I reached a decision. “Maybe we should clean it. Except—what a chore!”

  Oria grinned. “A challenge. I’ve wanted to set this castle to rights for—” She shook her head. “Mama said to bring you down to the smithy. You can sleep in the loft. That way we can add this Fire Stick to the two we’ve already put in our supply pack.”

  I agreed, glad to be relieved of having to sleep alone in the castle. It wasn’t the sadness of the past lingering in shadowy corners that bothered me so much as my own fears about the future.

  oOo

  During the long, snowbound month that followed, I kept busy. The few times I had nothing to do, Julen assigned me chores. She called herself my maid, and her directions were framed in the form of a question (“Would you care to deliver these mended halters to the garrison, my lady?”), but otherwise she treated me much as she treated Oria. I found this comforting. I didn’t feel so much like an orphan.

  We spent a lot of time at the old garrison—a leftover from the days when every noble had some kind of private army—training in swordfighting with all those who had volunteered to help in the war. Our army was comprised mostly of young people from villages across Tlanth.

  In charge was Khesot, a man whose seventy years had been devoted to the service of the Counts and Countesses of Tlanth, our father, and his grandmother before him—except for a five-year stint fighting for the old king during the long siege when the infamous pirate fleet called the Brotherhood of Blood had tried to gain access to the coastal cities. It was these five years’ service as a warrior that had gotten him placed in the position he was in now. He’d never risen higher than leader of a riding, but he knew enough of war to realize his own shortcomings. And he was the best we had.

  The huge, drafty building echoed with the clanks and thuds and shouts of mock battle. Khesot walked slowly from pair to pair, his mild brown eyes narrowed as he watched us work.

  “Get that shield arm up,” he said to a tough old stonemason. “Remember you will likely be fighting mounted warriors, and I very much fear that most of us will be afoot. The mounted fighter has the advantage; therefore you must unhorse your opponent before you can hope to win…”

  We had spent days affixing shiny metal bits to our shields to reflect sunlight at the horses and cause them to rear. We also practiced slicing saddle belts, hooking spears or swords around legs and heaving warriors out of the saddle. And we learned other methods of unhorsing warriors, such as tying fine-woven twine between two trees at just the right height so that the riders would be knocked into the dust.

  Khesot turned around, then frowned at two young men who had assumed the old dueling stance and were slashing away at one another with merry abandon, their swords ringing.

  “Charic! Justav! What do you think you are doing?”

  The men stopped, Charic looking shamefaced. “Thought we’d refine a little, in case we take on one o’ them aristos—”

  “Many of whom are trained in swordplay from the time they begin to walk,” Khesot cut in, his manner still mild, but both young men had red faces. “By the very best sword masters their wealthy parents can hire. It would take them precisely as long as it amused them to cut you to ribbons. Do not engage their officers in a duel, no matter how stupid you might think them. Two of you, moving as I told you, can knock them off balance…”

  He went on to lecture the two, who listened soberly. Several others gathered around to listen as well.

  Oria and I had been working with one another until I stopped to watch. Oria lowered her sword arm and eyed me. “What’s wrong?”

  I dropped my point, absently massaging my shoulder. “Did I frown? I was—well, thinking of something.”

  She shrugged, and we resumed our practice. But I kept part of my attention on Khesot, and when he drew near to us, I disengaged and said, “I have a question for you.”

  Khesot nodded politely, and as we walked to the side of the room, he said, “May I compliment you, my lady, on your improvement?”

  “You may,” I said grimly, “but I know I’m still not good enough to face anyone but a half-trained ten-year-old.”

  He smiled. “You cannot help your stature.”

  “You mean I’m short and scrawny, and I’ll always be short and scrawny, and short and scrawny makes for a terrible warrior.”

  His smile widened; he was on the verge of laughter. As he positioned himself so he could continue to watch the practice, he said, “You have a question for me?”

  “Something I’ve been worrying about; what you told Charic and Justav put me in mind of it. Even if we have the best-trained warriors in the world, how can we really hope to defeat that army of Galdran’s? I can see how long it takes to beat just one person, and you know that even Faeruk, who is our best, won’t be able to take on whole ridings.”

  “I am hoping that the most the king will send against us will be a couple of wings,” Khesot said. “Twice-nine ridings, with their foot warriors, we can probably handle, if we plan well and use our familiarity with the territory to our advantage.”

  “So,” I said, “I was thinking. Instead of having to do all this hacking and slashing, could it be possible to try other means to defeat them—throu
gh discouragement or even dismay?”

  “What have you in mind?”

  “It is the king’s cousin, Baron Debegri, who wants our lands,” I said. “Rumor has it he is a pompous fool. If we were to make him look foolish, might he give it up as a bad business and go home?” Khesot was silent, so I continued, outlining my plans. “Supposing we could, oh, turn aside a stream uphill from their camp and swamp them in their bedrolls. Or sneak in and add pepper to their food. Or sit in trees and drop powdered itchwort on them as they ride beneath.”

  Khesot paused, his gaze distant. Finally he turned to me, his expression curious. “Who is to execute these admirable plans?”

  “I will.” I smacked my chest. “I know I’m never going to be much good in these hand-to-hand battles, but climbing trees is something I can do better than most. I’ll ask for volunteers. I know Oria will join me, and Young Varil. Old Varil says he’s too small to handle a sword, and he wants so badly to help. And—”

  Khesot lifted a hand. “I had not considered that you would actually go into battle with us, my lady. I thought your practice here was mostly for diversion.”

  My face heated up. “I guess that’s a polite way of telling me that I really am bad with the sword, then?”

  He smiled a little. “No, it’s just that members of the nobility don’t usually lead battles unless they’ve been trained their whole lives.”

  “But I will never ask anyone from our village—from any village in Tlanth—to risk his or her life unless I’m willing to myself.”

  “You must realize, my lady, if Galdran’s people catch you, they will treat you like any other prisoner…”

  “We’re all equally at risk,” I said. “But my plan is to be sneaky, so they are surprised.”

  He bowed. “Then I leave it to you, my lady.”

  I bowed back. “I’ll get started right away!”

  oOo

  Though I still missed my brother and worried because he sent no message, having a plan to work on made the wintry days move faster. I was very busy, often from the first ring of the gold-candle bell at dawn to the single toll of midnight, when those who kept night watches lit the first white candle.