One more peek, up the smooth western face of Skalts’ Tower: no one visible on its rampart. She left the gutter for the old pathway down to the rocky point from which people had viewed the ships along the single pier for centuries.
To the right, the viewpoint, to the left, the old Trallagat.
She stamped into the mossy old tunnel as echoes of the surf roared over the rocks below, then hissed outward again. In her day the young had often met here for assignations. Here was where she’d first trysted with Fulla when she was just a scribe and he a third son about to be sent south.
A scrape, followed by the ice-tinkle and squish of a step from the other end caused her to halt. Then the footsteps approached rapidly, as someone whistled a single soft note. She ran forward, heedless of mucky puddles, then fell into Fulla’s arms. They ripped their hoods up and kissed with all the passion of youth.
When at last they broke apart, he said, “Did anyone say anything to you last night after we met at the gathering?”
“No. No one is interested in our reconciliation. We’re old and boring.” She added dryly, “Our parting was interesting as long as they could laugh about our cold beds, or speculate whether you’d choose a wife from another House and whether you would set aside Halvir in favor of a new son.”
Durasnir snorted, his breath a brief pale cloud in the cold, dim blue light. “Erkric noticed I did not go home with you. I want him to think affairs remain cool between us.”
“Why? What happened in Goerael?”
“First tell me what has been happening here.”
She said, “Nothing. People are quiet, going about their lives. Except for glancing over their shoulders in fear of spiderwebs, which has become habit for us all.”
“Like steps in the hel dance, when they use their slippers to make the patterns in the sand on the floor,” he observed. “You are so used to their beguiling movements, at first you do not see that the sand-patterns have changed.”
He so rarely used figurative language she was surprised, and wondered if he’d been sipping bristic to ward the cold. She said slowly, “As you predicted when we began our farcical parting, the council has accepted that Prince Rajnir will be declared king. The skalts have made much of your triumphs on Goerael under his leadership—”
“Triumphs,” he repeated scornfully. “Triumphs! They all ran and hid, except for a mad few. On Goerael, Rajnir never said a word without Erkric at his side. I never spoke to Rajnir except to receive orders, and Erkric stood there to watch me receive them. I tried to contact the northern commander. I also tried to hold conversation with my captains, but at every turn there was one of Erkric’s dags. Their being able to shift around by magic gives them the advantage. That and their spying webwork.”
“Why?” she asked. “I thought all that must end, now that the old king is all but forgotten, and everyone looks to Rajnir as our next.”
“Listen: there is more. Erkric caused Rajnir to assign each of the commanders a dag for an aide, but these are nothing more, or less, than personal spies.”
“A personal spy? A dag as a spy?” She made the sign of warding; the world, which had seemed safe (once she’d accustomed herself to the lack of private speech in her own home) had again cracked into madness.
Durasnir bent his head, whispering into the rough wool of her hood. “Ulaffa was able to accomplish one thing. My spy is our old friend Dag Byarin. Now, I cannot tell you for certain that he works against Erkric. In their own ways, I suspect, the dags not committed to Erkric’s cause face as much danger as we do. I am careful to say nothing before Byarin that he cannot report to Erkric. And in his turn, he does not see me anywhere but where I say I am. So right now, I am asleep on my ship.” A brief smile. “But I am summoned to the Frasadeng for the treason trial.”
“Bringing me back to my question. Why? No one blames Rajnir for the failed invasion. It is past. The talk is all about Goerael. Because you told me to speak to no one for fear of spiderwebs, and because my contacts among the old queen’s household were dispersed to the far corners of Venn, I cannot write for information. I am left with these unanswered questions.”
“There is no talk about Rajnir? No suspicion?”
Brun exclaimed, “How many times must I say it? All I hear around me is a wish to return to the old ways, to order.”
Durasnir gripped her arms. “You forget magic. By brandishing Signi as a traitor, Dag Erkric will convince the council, and the Houses, and the people, that his own actions were unquestionable.”
“But what is the need? Rajnir will be proclaimed king, and his first act will be to name Erkric Dag of the Venn. What more is there?”
“Magic, as I said. Until now, magic has been used according to strict rules. What I did not tell you before was this: during the invasion, Erkric began breaking those rules. He still did not win, but he might have, had not Dag Signi, or someone else, interfered. Not in defense of the Marlovans, but directly counter to Erkric’s actions, which were nominally in our favor, but only when gaining him power.”
“Nominally?”
“Some dags died. By magic, it is said. Again, I don’t have proof. Ulaffa, head of the Yaga Krona, does not have proof.”
For the first time, the possibilities of unchecked magical power broke on her mind, making her feel sick with apprehension.
Durasnir sensed it in the tensing of her body, and went on deliberately, so that she would understand. Now that Erkric thought he was in reach of winning—that Durasnir was isolated even from his wife—he could share his burdens with her once again.
“These actions will give Erkric powers that none of us—Oneli, Drenga, Hilda—with all our training, can withstand.” Durasnir let her go and massaged his temples with his gloved hand. “I pondered long while I was at sea and tried to put together the leaves to show me the shape of the limb. How does this sound? Whatever the truth behind her actions, with this trial, Erkric can make Signi the focus of hate so no one questions what he himself has done. Also his forcing Dag Signi into the position of traitor makes it look like dags are answerable, when in truth he isn’t.” He gripped her again.
“So Dag Signi is no traitor?” She thought of the furtive figures abroad at night and added, “I think a Blood Crowd is being formed.”
“That would be on Erkric’s orders, I have no doubt. As to Signi’s guilt or innocence, I do not know. The single time I saw her take action, both our people and the Marlovans were swept aside by a mighty geyser.” Durasnir felt his wife stiffen in his grip, and he said, “No, I don’t believe she’s a traitor.”
“By the Tree,” she whispered, appalled. “Does this mean that you and the dags will permit Erkric to put an innocent woman on that tower to suffer so hideous a death? Because no treason trial has ever ended but with a death!”
“What can I do? Start a civil war so that more die than just this one?” His voice roughened with grief and deep betrayal. “Do you think I want to see her thrown to the tower stones and her lungs pulled through her broken ribs?”
Brun’s voice was low. “If you stand by and let it happen, believing she is innocent, then all your efforts to ward Rainorec were for nothing. Nothing! For Rainorec is already here.”
She walked away.
The steady tang of the alarm bells smashed Cama out of sleep. He rolled out of bed, cursing when his bare feet hit the cold stone floor of the mostly bare guest chamber at Castle Andahi.
The door slammed open. Ndand Arveas strode in, bow strung, fingers fastening her quiver over her shoulder with the absent speed of practice. “Pirates sailing into the bay. Looks like five of ’em. Big ones.”
“Damnation,” Cama exclaimed, hopping on one foot as he tried to get his clothes wrestled on all at once.
Another time Ndand would have laughed at the sight of Cama flailing around, black hair hanging everywhere, sleeves and trouser legs tangling. But the memory of sudden threat from the sea was far too sharp for that.
As Cama flung the shirt down and c
oncentrated on getting his legs into the trousers, she ran out through the sentry walk door. Her voice rapidly faded, “Cap’n Han! You get your girls on the high wall . . .”
Cama plunked down onto the bed, pulled on his dirty socks from the day before rather than hunt for new. Then he grabbed his shirt and coat in one hand and his weapons in the other and bolted downstairs for the guard barracks.
The five capital ships were the Death, Cocodu, Wind’s Kiss, Sable, and Rapier. The scout Vixen sailed on station abaft Death.
The sails brailed up, anchors dropped, and Death’s gig lowered over the side.
Barend dropped down and sat forward, peering through his glass at the castle limned with early morning light. The landslide was still there, greenery dotting the upper half. A high stone wall had been built across the lower half, and a sentry path led up and down. No one would hide up there to shoot down onto the castle again.
Cama ran out the front gate. Barend grinned at the sight of his hair hanging down to his waist, his coat open over an unlaced shirt. Cama looked more like a pirate right now than pirates did, as he brandished his weapons toward the shore and shouted unheard orders to rapidly assembling men.
Above him, Ndand stood squarely, arrow already nocked, her women taking position along walls and towers. Why? There was nothing on the roads, or the heights. . . .
Oh. Barend realized for the first time that his old friends thought they were under attack from the ships.
From the stern sheets, Fox remarked, “You say these people will welcome you?” His drawl masked the tension he felt not from threat, but from extreme ambivalence.
“Forgot they can’t tell the difference between a Venn or an old wine-barrel caravel. Why, I’ll wager anything they think we are pirates! Stay here,” he added, chuckling hoarsely, as the sailors lifted their oars and the gig rode the small waves up onto shore. “I’ll go up alone.”
“If they shoot you down I’m going to crow,” Fox warned.
“You won’t last long enough,” Barend retorted.
Fox had to agree. The castle’s assembled defense had been fast and excellent. No, really it was superlative, though he wouldn’t admit that out loud. So are you listening, Ramis?
No answer, of course. Fox had taken to sending mental comments to the air, though there was no sense whatever that they were heard outside the confines of his skull. In fact, by now he would have been convinced that the entire episode with Ramis was a bad dream, except for the bruises and aches that had lingered for days. Probably deliberate reminders, right?
No answer.
The castle defense waited for Barend to reach the broken ground directly below the outer curtain wall, the worst possible ground for an attack. The sight of armed Marlovan women on the walls, bows drawn and ready, gave Fox an unexpected twinge of regret.
Barend walked into the ground deliberately strewn with the broken rock of ruin, his hands held up at shoulder height, palms out.
Cama had finished strapping on his weapons, then found his eye patch in his coat pocket. He yanked it impatiently round his head, then pulled the watch captain’s spyglass out of his hand, put it to his good eye, then slapped it back into the surprised man’s hand as he yelled, “It’s Barend!”
Up on the wall, Ndand lowered her bow. “That’s Barend?” she called down. “Why’s he dressed like that?”
Barend had begun loping up the shingle toward the castle. Cama took off as fast as he’d been as a boy, and they met just below the small bluffs where the soil ended and sand began. The entire castle was at the ready; they watched in bemusement as the Jarl and the fellow in the crimson shirt, deck trousers, and black sash laughed, whacked each other on the back, then started back toward the castle, still laughing.
“Stand down,” Ndand called wryly to the watch captain, who signaled to the Rider with horn at the ready.
Taut bows were unstrung, battle-ready lines dissolved into chattering, stamping knots of people, many complaining about the cold that had abruptly set in the week before after a long, lingering late summer.
“What are you doing with pirate ships?” Cama asked, swinging around to regard the sinister silhouettes riding in the bay.
Barend said, “Those are Inda’s. The black one is the second one he took.”
Cama whistled. “He took that thing away from pirates when we were running around with wooden sticks, thinking ourselves so tough being horsetails?” He shook his head.
“How are things here? Settling ’em down?”
“Some. It’s partly the rebuilding. We don’t have any money to pay the locals like Evred wants done, so we’ve been piling up a debt. They don’t believe we’ll pay it. Then there are those who don’t want to do anything but fight. They lurk up in the hills, watching for a chance to scrag us.” His teeth showed briefly, a white flash in his dark face. “Scrag me. You’d think there’s a bounty on my head, except no one up here has any money, either.”
“Well, that money thing is why I’m here,” Barend said, and when Cama swung around in surprise, Barend cast a furtive look about. They were some two hundred paces from the retreating guards. “That’s actually why Inda sent me. Those ships are crammed with pirate treasure.”
“Even the little one?” Cama shaded his eye from the sun now sitting just above the coast.
“That one has the best stuff. Cups studded with diamonds, jewels probably looted from the ships of kings. The biggest one, there, is full of Sartoran twelve-siders. The idea is to send it to Evred, for use now. The rest is going east to be turned into trade paper. Listen, if Evred likes this plan, you’re going to have to arrange for wagons and fellows to make sure it gets to the royal city.”
Cama stroked his chin. “I’ve got Nightingale’s golden locket as well as the golden case thing. But Evred doesn’t want us using those for important communications.”
Barend asked quickly, “Nightingale all right?”
“Randael in Khani-Vayir now. Cousin’s old. Asked him to give up being King’s Runner. Nightingale’s running the jarlate. Married Hild Sindan.”
Barend remembered the young woman who’d been a watch-commander at Ala Larkadhe under Tdiran-Randviar, and he gave a grunt of approval.
“Who’ve you got in that boat?”
“Gig crew. And Fox Montredavan-An.”
Cama turned all the way around, but all he saw was an indistinct figure in dark clothes. Was that red hair? “Bring ’em in.” He whirled his hand in a lazy circle. “We’ll get some breakfast into ’em while we make our plans.”
Barend loped back toward the shore, and Cama rejoined Ndand to tell her he’d invited them to breakfast so Barend could share his overseas report. The rest he saved until they could be private. Neither of them had forgotten the poet-spy Estral Mardric.
Barend reached Fox. “Talk over breakfast.”
Fox’s tough, hand-picked gig crew turned his way. He waggled his fingers at the castle, and faces lightened with anticipation.
And so, after eleven years, Fox Montredavan-An set foot again on what was now Marlovan land.
“This is Castle Andahi?” Fox peered around as they started up toward the castle. “Looks like a new landslide. That is, new enough. Part of the war?”
“Yes.”
Fox snorted. “You’re almost as gabby as Inda.”
“Everyone lost too much to want to talk about it. Especially Ndand. She was sent south by the Jarlan, leaving the women to defend against the entire Venn army. Not one woman survived, but they held the castle for a crucial couple of days.”
Fox’s faint smile tightened to grimness. The damage was revealing, if you knew how to assess it. The new rock fitted and plastered into old walls, the makeshift gates. Fox slowed, examining the silent testimony all around him as they passed the first curtain wall. Those were massive gates, the hinges and chains new. How had the Venn brought those down?
He eyed the pair coming to meet them. Cama was tall, black-haired, and Fox identified under the black hair a
nd the body that seemed to be made of whipcord and steel a bone structure akin to his own. The Tya-Vayirs were cousins to the Montredavan-Ans back six generations, but then most of these Vayirs were cousins if you went back far enough.
Cama gave Fox a speculative head to heels sweep through his one eye, then deferred to Ndand, a plain Marlovan woman with corn-colored braids who gave a brief introduction; Barend said, “This is Fox. Fleet commander.”
As Cama and Ndand led the way inside, the gig’s crew were taken off by a couple of Runners to the guard barracks, where they would try to outdo one another’s war stories.
Fox looked around. The castle, though clean, was sparse in furnishings, and all those were new. The walls and ceilings still bore scorch marks.
Ndand sneaked another glance at the tall fellow in black who had come with Barend. It was unsettling how much he resembled the king, yet was dressed like a pirate. “Fox.” She knew she’d heard that name before. It was a common enough nickname for Marlovan redheads.
That was it, he spoke Marlovan.
They sat in the dining alcove, which was a bare room with only the usual low table and plain-woven mats. Fox hadn’t sat on a mat to eat for so long that this, too, felt strange.
The food was the same food Fox had eaten in childhood: pan biscuits of rye, cabbage rolls, root brew and water to drink, for castle people never had alcohol at early meals. They had far too much work ahead of them.
The talk at first was mere chatter, and he left Barend to it. Weather, sailing versus riding, wherever do you buy a crimson silk shirt like that? They shifted to questions about people, and Barend was just getting to the “So how’s . . .” which are so tedious if one doesn’t know any of those named when a small boy with unruly short brown hair erupted into the room.
“Barend!” he yelped.
“Keth.” Barend grinned and gave the boy a friendly cuff as Keth bent to pinch a biscuit and dunk it into the honey.
“Use your knife,” Ndand scolded. “It’s not manners, dunking in the table honey.”