“Takes too long to clean.” Keth made a face. “And he isn’t company, he’s just Barend. Oh.” He took in Fox, from black boots to earring, then addressed Barend. “I’m in the academy now. See my short hair?” Keth proudly flicked the wisps around his ears.
Barend had never been in the academy due to his father’s prejudice, but Keth didn’t know that. “How’d it go? How’s Ind—the Harskialdna?”
“The horsetails call him Pirate,” Keth said with that carefully offhand importance meant to impress. “He started training them, but stopped. We used to sneak up on the rooftop and watch. Hoo, he’s fast. No one can whup him, the guards say. Some of the boys gave me lip on account of my name, and Honeyboy Tya-Vayir lipped the Harskialdna, you know, behind his back. ‘He’s a claphair! Talks old-fashioned, calls the stalls our pit, sounds stooopid!’ So I got into some dusts, but I won. Most,” he amended.
“You’ll win more if you get out to the yard,” Ndand hinted. “And get in some overdue practice.”
Keth started out, then paused, eying Fox again. “You a pirate?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes.” Fox’s smile was white-edged, and Keth backed up a few more steps, uncertain, then beat a fast retreat to brag to the rest of the castle children.
Cama shut the door and engaged the lock-latch.
“Claphair?” Barend asked. “Kind of young for that.”
Cama snorted. “Changed meaning again, to what we called being a lick, in our day. Although I got word it’s changing again, coming to mean someone’s bullyboy. Inda’s just too tough to make a convincing lick.”
They all laughed at that, then Ndand said seriously, “Barend, Keth reminds me of something. This castle is full of orphans. The countryside is full of orphans. I’ve got at least three youngsters right here who want to go to sea. Parents used to be seafaring, before the pirates and the Venn put a stop to that. Can you take some of them on?”
Barend slid a look Fox’s way to receive a slight shrug. Fox wouldn’t say anything either way about taking Marlovans. “Sure. You know we might be heading toward battle.”
Cama snorted. Ndand opened her hand. “Can we promise there won’t be any more fighting here?”
No one had an answer to that, so Cama said, “Now, what’s this about gold?”
Barend gave him the details, and Cama—knowing how much Barend hated writing—said, “I’ll report to Evred. Why don’t you take Fox around the castle?” And then, to Fox, “I know who you are. Inda taught us some of your double-knife fighting on our way up to face the Venn.” As Ndand gave a small gasp of recognition, he asked, “Will you drill us before you leave? Inda kept saying you’re better than he is. I find that hard to believe.”
Fox just shrugged, and Barend said, “He is. Hand-to-hand, anyway. Ndand, how much are we interrupting your day? I remember my way around. I can give him a tour. But he wants to know about the battle, and I left before I’d heard everything.”
Ndand thought of her full day of tasks, weighing those against this unexpected encounter with Shendan Montredavan-An’s mysterious brother. Fox had been with Inda, who, everyone said, was as gabby as a rock about his pirate days. “I’ll take him around,” she offered. “Why don’t you stay with Cama. In case Evred has questions.”
“Good thinking.”
Evred’s ring brought him to the headmaster’s office door, and he paused at the sound of laughter coming from within, not just from Gand and Inda, but from many men. Ready anger burned through him and he slammed open the door, but there were no forbidden bottles during duty watch, there was no heady smell of ale or wine. Most of the masters were there, plus several instructors—the boys were all home by now. Evred then spied the chalkboards in everyone’s hands, and realized that they were quite properly tallying the end-year evaluations.
It was so unfamiliar, that laughter during duty time. But it couldn’t be wrong, because he could see that the work was getting done.
The men stood, saluting, smiles cooling to sobriety in all the faces, even Gand’s. Inda’s smile had faded to concern, then mute question.
“Carry on, Gand.” Evred opened his hand, wondering what they saw in his face. “Inda, a moment.”
Evred was speaking in that soft voice, the one Inda hadn’t heard since just before Tau came back. Inda rolled a glance toward Gand only to have his own question mirrored back.
Shufflings and throat clearings rustled in the room, the masters returning to duty as Inda followed Evred out. As soon as the door was shut he began, “Look, if you don’t like Tau running the Fox drills with your Runners, I can—”
Evred flat-handed his words aside. “I told you to do what you like.” His expression eased slightly. “I notice that just about all the training girls have joined in the last few days since you sent him down there. And most of the younger men have come back.”
Inda chuckled. “That’s what Tdor told me.”
Evred stopped in the middle of one of the practice courts, out of earshot of the sentries endlessly patrolling above. “Inda. What’s this about a treasure?”
Inda whistled. “Did Barend write?”
“He is with Cama. They have five ships filled with gold in Castle Andahi harbor.”
Inda flashed a wide grin. “It was meant to be a surprise.”
“It is. A surprise.”
Inda gazed into Evred’s face, puzzled by the intensity he could not define. He could feel it, but not define it. “We kept it a secret. Only F—a few of us knew. Barend and I weren’t sure if we could actually get any, so we didn’t want to add to the load of things you already had on your mind.”
Evred held out a thin strip of paper, covered with tiny handwriting. “Cama says here that Barend intends to unload one. The rest is going to Bren, along with barrels and barrels of island-grown coffee beans, to my mother, to be turned into credit. That is, if we agree.”
Thank you, Fox. “You decide. The treasure is for you,” Inda said, hands spread. “And for the kingdom. What else is it good for?”
Evred realized at last what he’d been seeing so gradually over the past eight months: the atmosphere of friendship among the masters, the sense of fun among the boys in the academy. It was a mirror of their academy days in the scrub barracks, when Inda was their commander in all but name.
They are loyal to Inda. Not a sworn loyalty, one demanded by honor and duty. It was another kind of loyalty, one freely given, perhaps even unaware. Just like when they were boys. Yet that bond had proved to be as strong as oath-bonds.
Evred struggled with far too many shocks. It had happened so gradually that only now could he see that the men were loyal to Inda in the way that Evred’s uncle had so wanted the armed forces of Iasca Leror to be loyal to him. Uncle Anderle had wanted it badly enough to expand the academy to include brothers, so everyone would come under his training. They had come out loyal to the kingdom, but not to him.
So . . . this new attitude was new, it was real, but was it a problem?
Evred looked down at the paper in his hands, but did not see the painstaking words. The men are loyal to Inda, and he is loyal to me. No king could have a better command chain. Ever.
Inda waited, scrutinizing Evred for a sign of reaction. Was he pleased? Displeased? How could he be displeased?
“It will fix many things,” Evred said slowly, thinking: A king with such loyalty would be a fool not to use it to the kingdom’s advantage. He hated the thought of Inda leaving; he’d made it impossible for Inda to return to Choraed Elgaer, but that was to protect Inda against the pain of divided allegiance. There was no such problem with the north, and who would be better to guard that gold, and to convince the Idayagans to settle down at last? It would never occur to Inda to use the gold, and the men, and carve out a kingdom for himself. Gratitude, tenderness, the prospect of a day without hearing Inda’s quick step, without seeing his rolling gait, without feeling the heat-spike of his sudden grin, hollowed him to the spine.
Once Inda had recoiled fro
m his touch. “Many.” Evred whirled around and walked away, leaving Inda standing there puzzled.
Chapter Twenty-six
NDAND and Fox toured the castle. At first she was carefully neutral as she gave a well-trained field report. But by the time she got to Liet-Jarlan’s orders sending her with Keth and the children, and what they’d found there, her voice had deepened with emotion. The damage in high ceilings, old storage rooms, and stairwells was an effective illustration.
Ndand herself was an ordinary Marlovan woman, fair-haired, strong, with the swinging stride that came of years of training. When she whisked herself through a narrow access and ran up the stairs Fox hung back to watch her move. The flare of attraction—awareness—made him laugh inwardly. Wasn’t her that stirred him. Had he been forming the younger women in the fleet to be Marlovans in all but speech and clothes? He knew the answer. How Inda would laugh!
At the end, they stood on the tower where the little girls had defended against the bungled Idayagan attack just weeks after the battle in the pass, and once again she spoke in a swift, detached manner.
Then crossed her arms. She’d been wondering how to introduce the subject of his sister, to ask if he wanted to send a letter home. She looked doubtfully into that hard, sardonic face, then decided if he wanted to write a letter, he was quite capable of asking for it to be sent. Meanwhile, there was that old treaty to think of. Weren’t the Montredavan-An men forbidden to step outside their border on pain of death? They could only go to sea.
But there was nothing to prevent her from writing to Shendan herself. “Fair trade?” she asked, smiling. “How about telling us some of the pirate stories Inda wouldn’t?”
“What would you like to hear?” he returned.
At the end of the tour, Cama and Barend were waiting upstairs in the Jarlan’s office.
Barend said, “Evred agrees. One ship offload, but we’re to keep it all here. Pay off the debts in Olara, Lindeth, and Idayago. But right now sit tight. He’s going to send Inda north with a force to protect the dispersal.”
Cama rubbed his jaw. He’d never thought Evred would let Inda out of his sight. Ever. “I like that. Hope he sends him with a few ridings of dragoons. Hills are full of fellows spouting about freedom, but what they want is a fight, and loot. Not work.”
Barend patted his chest, where the locket hung inside his clothing. “Evred knows that or he wouldn’t be sending Inda.”
Cama grunted. “The last holdouts of the Resistance will hate us paying up. It’s over money they keep trying to stir trouble. Bound to be a try for the source once we start handing it out.” He grinned, tapping the folded paper on the desk. “After Inda oversees the delivery of the gold, Evred wants him to spend the winter riding around looking dangerous.”
As the others signified agreement, Cama observed Fox listening in silence. Strange. Here in Castle Andahi was the mysterious Savarend Montredavan-An. No. That old treaty was precise about what would happen if a Montredavan-An set foot on Iascan land outside their border. So here was the second Elgar the Fox, who had a hand in defeating the pirates that had scourged Iasca Leror’s coast for so long.
Cama grinned. “Come on, Fox, let’s you and I roust up the guards’ lazy butts and give the boys in the hills a show.”
A Runner went to summon the off-duty men, and the two walked out to the expanse at the back of the castle, which was mostly grass, surrounded by the communal kitchen gardens.
After a drill that left them sweat-drenched and panting, Fox put them in pairs to spar. At the last the two commanders sparred as the others circled around, yelling and hooting.
Fox saw Inda’s style in Cama’s attack. What Cama hadn’t had time to learn in trickery he made up for with speed, strength, and an unrelenting determination to win.
After a particularly bone-rattling fall, as Fox helped Cama to his feet, the latter pinned him single-eyed. “Ever lost?”
Fox huffed out a laugh. “There’s always someone better. Always.”
The evening passed congenially, the talk mostly sea battles as opposed to land warfare. Fox enjoyed himself. He was only aware of irony as he rowed back to the Death to sleep—he had felt at home among these fellows.
The next day was spent unloading the Death. Fox had bought up every barrel on the islands, most labeled for coffee, others for wine. He spotted at least three suspicious glints from the heights round the castle as guards and sailors alike rolled the barrels—coins packed with sand so they wouldn’t clink—up the shore to firm ground, to be piled on wagons and driven into the castle, then thumped down into the newly redone cellars.
By nightfall Fox’s ships were asail again, Barend with them. They would stop at Bren before continuing down the strait on the last of the western winds. There they’d join up with Fangras and the rest of the Fox Banner Fleet to discover who was going to control the strait.
Tdor could always tell when Tau was spending the night with Hadand by the scent of hot chocolate that lingered in the hallway outside the queen’s suite.
Tdor paid attention to the royal castle’s ways in her effort to make it home. During the summer, if she opened certain windows in the Harskialdna tower, a northwest wind could be sent all the way down the long, long hallway of the residence’s upper level, cooling the air.
In winter, though, no one wanted a bitter wind, so the windows were shut and the air moved more slowly. She could sniff the hallway watches after people had left and name what they had been eating. She could even figure out who had been there, if the air had stirred little, and the person used bath herbs. Like Tau. The air always smelled faintly like summer wherever he was or had been.
She paused outside the old schoolroom, which had become Inda’s office, and also outside the dining room.
She paused with a hand on the door latch, listening to the voices inside. Two male, one female. Tau’s laugh, so musical. He sounded like he was singing when he wasn’t. No, that was wrong, he didn’t warble, or talk like he was a Herskalt giving orders. The quality of his voice had music in it, somehow.
Then there was Evred’s quiet voice. It sounded so different now, he didn’t cut his words off, and it had been a long time since he spoke in that frightening whisper. He even laughed. The first time Tdor heard that, she was surprised.
Evred laughed now. Inda had said, “Tau’s good for Evred.”
Tdor could see that, but she couldn’t understand how showing up with bruises at breakfast could be good for anyone. She still didn’t understand how some liked rough sex, but she already knew that Whipstick and Noren had also liked it that way—she had even heard laughter as well as crashing furniture back in Tenthen, when the summer caused all the windows to be open.
Sex. She lifted the latch and opened the door, hoping to leave the subject behind her.
Three faces looked up in welcome. Evred spoke with his habitual courtesy, but his gaze seemed distracted; Tdor wondered if Evred was already missing Inda as much as she was.
Sex again. Or rather, passion. That reminded her of Signi, and she turned her attention to Hadand, who had also been so much happier since summer. From the number of chocolate-scented mornings outside Tdor’s office, it seemed like Tau spent most of his nights with the queen.
How did Hadand manage? How did they all manage without anyone getting jealous? Tdor bit into a warm biscuit, eating mechanically as she considered love. Evred was not in love with Hadand, though he loved her; Tau didn’t seem to be in love with either of them. If he loved anyone, it was Jeje, judging from how his voice changed when he referred to her. Evred didn’t love Tau like he loved Hadand. Passion? Not like he had for Inda, not nearly as intense, you could see it just in the way he turned his head when either of them spoke.
Signi and I love Inda, and he loves us both. Tdor squirmed, hating the thought that love was the cause of jealousy, because that made love the enemy. The same thing that is wrong with me when I look outside the window, and my heart eases when Signi is not seen on the road. I ha
te that thing, I repudiate that thing. I just wish she’d get back soon, so we can settle how our lives will be. How long does it take to go from castle to town to bridge? Everyone says we have fewer of them than other kingdoms—
Inda banged through the door. Once again the three looked up in welcome, their expressions so characteristic. Evred’s quick smile that then smoothed out, Tau’s careless grin, Hadand’s fond, abstracted welcome.
“Everything’s ready.” Inda dropped down next to Tdor. “Horses being packed now, men forming up. I’m here to grab a bite.” Plunk! His spoon splashed into the porridge.
The others talked around Inda, as usual. The conversation became general, mostly about travel with winter nigh, as Inda bent over his bowl and ate as fast as he could.
Tdor turned back to Evred, who had resumed his polite face. She thought about those quick, almost hidden smiles at Inda when he ate, head down, like a puppy. Tdor wondered if she had the same smile. Did love make people’s habits dear? And did liking make them invisible? Because Hadand and Tau looked away, but it wasn’t deliberate. They just did not seem to notice the familiar soft clack and slurp of Inda at a meal, so very much a contrast to Tau’s neat manners.
So did that mean, if you didn’t like someone, would their habits make you begin to hate them?
Inda ate as fast as he could, his thoughts galloping headlong. He couldn’t believe the treasure plan had actually worked. Pleasure, question, annoyance—he had given up on writing to Fox. He didn’t even know if the damned scroll case had survived being pitched into the fire. He’d just have to wait until he reached Cama to hear news about the Fox Banner Fleet.
As soon as the last bite of porridge was inside him he grabbed up his honey-smeared rye biscuits to eat on the long walk to the stable, and cut into the others’ chatter. “I’m ready to ride.”
Evred rose. “I’ll meet you in the stable. I’ve something to give you. Let me get it.”