Tau gazed at the back of Fox’s head as he and Barend carefully measured distances, then he looked back at Evred’s note. Tau now understood why Fox had retired from the discussions. Either Inda carried out Evred’s orders and subjected the strait to Marlovan peace—which anyone could see Inda was reluctant to do now that he’d realized what that entailed—or else Inda returned home and faced the consequences of not obeying orders.
An intolerable choice.
He reached for paper, despite the sickening inward conviction that all his work was for nothing. He had failed of his most important purpose: to save Inda this choice. Evred would never see outside of his Marlovan convictions.
If reason would not prevail, might not there be one last principle to try, the bonds of loyalty? That was part of the Marlovan code. Surely Evred would understand the breaking of trust . . . no, he couldn’t put it that way, because Evred would not be able to separate trust from obedience.
Tau could not rest or even eat until he handed Inda one last tightly folded paper, in which he’d written in Old Sartoran, Don’t force Inda to fight his friends.
Inda shoved it into the locket and sent it off, then returned to Barend, and overseeing a drill of the new ship rats they’d taken on at Freeport and at Fire Island.
Chapter Thirty
TDOR looked up from her desk when Hadand entered, and laughed as she extended her mittened fingers over the lamp to warm them. “Imand writes that Honeyboy is trying to teach Little Stalgrid to—” Her words stuttered to a stop when Hadand came into the light, her eyes wide, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Tdor rose up on her knees, dropping the letter onto the desk. “What’s wrong?”
“Evred requested our help,” Hadand said.
“Our help?” Tdor repeated, looking around wildly for enemies, fire, some threat as she followed Hadand to the door.
“It’s Inda,” Hadand whispered on an exhaling breath.
Tdor’s neck chilled. “I thought the Venn were defeated. They are back?”
Hadand just gave her head an impatient shake, so Tdor schooled herself to silence as they dashed out. Despite Hadand’s shortness, she had a very long stride when she wanted to move fast, and Tdor had to stretch out to match her pace.
They passed the king’s suite without a check and headed toward the government annex at the south end of the royal castle. Tdor realized she hadn’t seen Evred for days. Once it was our habit to all dine together, she thought as they ran down the steps. When did we do that last? When Inda was here. Then Signi had left, and Tdor and Hadand had formed the habit of eating together in the nursery, where they could watch the babies at play, or at sleep (Tdor had never imagined the fascination of watching a baby sleep), and talk over their day.
They reached Evred’s public office, and Tdor’s right fist came up ready for a salute but Hadand opened the door to a room occupied only by her mother.
Fareas-Iofre sat next to Evred’s high desk. She looked like a small graying wren, perched straight-backed and uncomfortable in the massive raptor chair as she bent over tiny scraps of paper, lit by three branches of half-burned candles, and one of the hallway glowglobes resting on a folded cloth.
She looked up and rubbed her eyes. “These are nearly impossible to read. I don’t think Inda picked up a pen all the years he was gone.”
“He didn’t.” Tdor gazed down at the desk in astonishment. “What are all these paper bits?”
Hadand pointed. “Inda and Evred. Inda seems to be having trouble with his orders, and Evred doesn’t know why.” She touched a smaller pile of rumpled papers. “These are from Tau. It looks like he’s trying to—” She frowned.
Tdor bent closer. Tau’s fine handwriting was clear, but . . . she looked up in horror. “They’re discussing orders—matters of import—with these little scraps of paper? These are even smaller than the ones we used with the scroll-cases! Why don’t they use those, at least?”
Hadand sighed. “Evred didn’t trust the scroll-cases because there was some evidence that Dag Erkric of the Venn had tampered with them right before the Andahi battle. The lockets go all the way back to his father, and they never failed.” She turned up her palm. “Evred asked me to find a way to explain himself more clearly.”
“To Inda and Tau?” Tdor asked. “I still don’t understand what the problem is.”
“This longer one here is from Cama.” Fareas-Iofre’s brown gaze flicked from Hadand to Tdor. “Evred wrote to him yesterday,” she said.
“They begin here.” Hadand indicated the row of Inda papers. “This one first.”
Tdor sighed, wishing Evred used a regular desk so she could sit on a cushion. She hitched herself onto the edge of the desk.
After puzzling over several of Inda’s scraps, Tdor said, “Do we have what Evred wrote?”
Hadand had leaned forward, elbows on the desk, head in her hands, Tau’s close-written first note before her. She lifted her head. “No. But he said he just keeps repeating his orders: take the strait, establish our rules over all equally, promise to patrol and enforce fairness.”
Tdor struggled against a new horror. “He can’t think there’s some, some plot going on. Not Inda!”
“Not Tau,” Hadand said in a low voice.
“Read them all,” Fareas said. “Ask questions after.”
Tdor flushed and bent over the little paper again, puzzling out each smeared, quick-writ word in Inda’s sloppy but dear handwriting. Once she surreptitiously kissed a paper before she set it aside, touching what she knew he had once touched. But as she worked her way through the carefully preserved scraps, her questions did not go away. They only intensified, causing more questions, like streams branching from a river.
When she’d read Tau’s last, written in Old Sartoran—Don’t force Inda to fight his friends—she looked up to find the other two waiting.
Hadand said, “You’re the best at explaining things so others understand.”
Tdor flushed at the unexpected compliment, then turned Fareas’ way. “But whatever I know was taught me by you. When you said to us as girls that explaining things was like jumping from horse to horse in the field games: you wait and match the rhythms of both and then it’s easy. If you don’t match rhythms, you fall off.”
Hadand leaned back, smiling wryly. “But I was the best at horse jumping, so obviously I’m not seeing something.”
Fareas said, “Tdor has always heard the way others use words, so she could explain things to people using their own words and ways.”
Hadand was about to protest, then tipped her head, considering. “No, you’re right.” She grinned. “I tend to just hand out orders, if I get impatient. Maybe that’s why the girls love you best, Tdor.” Then, more seriously, “So what do you think?”
As Tdor’s hesitation lengthened, the only sound was snow patting at the window. The air in the room had stilled, the candle flames elongating with barely a flicker.
Tdor said tentatively, “This is really important.”
Hadand flung out her hands. “Everything we do is important!”
Fareas squared the little piles with neat movements. “Everything you do is important here. This matter touches on lives in other lands.”
Hadand sighed. “Exactly. We’re bringing them peace. Well, we already brought them peace. Inda’s to see to its being kept.”
Tdor watched Fareas’ fingers smoothing the papers, like stroking a crying babe. “But . . . I think what Tau is saying is that they don’t want our laws, or our patrols.”
Hadand sighed. “Yes, Tau’s treaty. Why did he do that? I just can’t believe that Tau wants to become some sort of king. Is that why Evred is so angry? It doesn’t seem like Tau.”
Fareas touched Tau’s first note. “If he’s stating the truth, he claims no authority whatsoever. In this agreement between all these other monarchs, there would be no authority in the strait.”
Hadand sighed even louder. “That’s what I don’t get. There has to be an authority. People ne
ed one. Or you get the Venn, or pirates, or someone else turfing you out of your own homes, killing your people, and taking your things.”
Tdor hugged her arms against her body. Once, when she was about nine, she’d taken a Rider’s horse out, thinking she’d get a faster gallop than the girls had on the older training mounts. She got a gallop all right, but she couldn’t control the animal, who was used to a man in the saddle, not a small girl who could barely stay on. The speed had not been exhilarating but frightening.
She felt that way now, only worse, because of the strain across Fareas’ brow. If this were a simple matter of finding the right words, why could she feel the tension in the air?
They think you can explain. So explain. “Tau . . . seems to think that they can agree not to have an authority. And Inda doesn’t want to fight his allies to make them follow his orders.”
“But you can’t not have an authority. That’s what Evred doesn’t comprehend about their so-called treaty, which sounds just mad. He explained it to me this morning over breakfast. This is why he turned to Cama.” Hadand flicked Cama’s note, written in a strong block hand. “Who’s reminding us of what Idayago and the north was like before we got there—the nobles squabbling, the king building castles and ignoring the pass because he wanted the Olarans to pay for road-clearing. The Olarans ignoring it because they wanted Idayago to pay, according to some long-ago treaty that everyone had otherwise ignored. Lindeth Harbor charging the rates of the Nob three times, because no one liked trading at the Nob and then having to hire wagons for the long road down, past all the old robber caves. In those days, full of robbers, unless you hired a lot of guards.”
Tdor glanced down at the much-folded paper. Candlelight glowed on one thin strip, Cama’s bold lettering standing out: Tell Inda he gets tough with a few, the rest fall into line, just like he saw when he was here. She looked up. “I think . . . I think Tau’s treaty is suggesting a new thing.”
“But the new thing makes no sense. What’s more important, Inda swore before Convocation,” Hadand stated, shrugging. “Wisthia-Queen said once that we Marlovans don’t know anything about how politics in other kingdoms work, and I saw the truth of that in Anaeran-Adrani. Evred’s been learning about foreign politics, Tau was helping with that. Inda’s never known anything about ’em. Not even ours! But he swore before Convocation that he would bring Marlovan peace and fair laws to the entire strait. And one of our laws is when you’re under orders, you carry them out. Even Inda knows that. If we don’t all obey the laws, from king to cottager, then we end up like the north, waiting for someone stronger to ride in to the attack.”
Tdor said slowly, “I think Inda and Tau want Evred to change his mind.”
“Yes,” Fareas said.
Hadand’s eyes widened. “But that’s impossible. Evred’s given the orders—which he and Inda discussed for days before Convocation, I remember that much. Then they swore together before the Jarls! If, if, oh, there was some great king known for fairness along the strait, who promised his own fair laws and the force to keep them, I could see Evred changing the orders. But there is nothing! Just this silly idea that everyone knows doesn’t work or why are there kings in the first place?”
Before Tdor could answer the door opened, and Evred stepped in. Shock fired along her nerves. So rarely had she seen Evred angry, but those times had been nothing to how very angry he looked now.
Hadand moved from his chair as he walked past Tdor to the desk. “We’re done with the envoys.” He sank down. “I figured out what these Toarans really want, which is the secret of our steel.”
“So we lose those harbors for trade?” Hadand asked, leaving Tdor feeling as if she were making her way over unfamiliar river ice. She had so little idea what was going on outside of her own duties.
Evred pinched his fingers tightly to the bridge of his nose. “We’ll go with the Delfs, even if it means paying more. At least their demands are straightforward.” He dropped his hands. “Well? What do I say to Taumad to make myself clear?”
Fareas had drooped her gaze to the papers on the desk, her hands gripped inside her sleeves; Hadand said, “I’d just send Cama’s note.”
It was then that Tdor understood the sense of Hadand’s earlier words. She was not there to try to convince Evred to change his mind. He knew his mind. He believed his decision to be the right one, and he’d sworn it before all his Jarls.
In those moments he looked past her to address Hadand about the audience he’d just finished, she realized that what she’d taken to be anger was a tension so severe it looked like anger. But when he was angry, he whispered. His voice right now was flat with pain.
He needs us to help him explain himself to Inda and Tau. The import of that felt like a burden of stone, and the desperate importance of that communication was yet another great block of stone, and the consequences of failure a block so massive that its weight seemed to crush mind and spirit. Is this what being king is like every day?
Evred turned Tdor’s way, and she braced herself to meet that pain-flat gaze. “I need . . . more time to understand,” she said, because he was waiting, though she hated the inadequacy.
“There isn’t time.” He flat-handed the words away. “Here or there.” An indrawn breath—they heard it. “Have you descried something that I misapprehended? There has to be a reason they keep writing all these words about this empty treaty.”
Hadand turned toward the door. Evred’s pain hurt her, as it always did, though she fought against it. But she was tired, everyone’s duty seemed clear, and Inda’s willful blindness irked her as much as the silent conspiracy to preserve it. Despite all the trouble that had caused. “If nothing else, remind my idiot brother to keep his word of honor,” she said and walked out.
Tdor said something—later she never remembered what—and found herself with Fareas-Iofre outside of her own suite. She did not remember walking there.
“I believe I will go visit my Fera-Vayir relations,” Fareas said. “It is time.”
It was then that Tdor really understood not just the price of kingship, but the price Inda would have to pay if he did not obey. And his mother, dauntless all these years, could not bear to be there to see him pay it.
Inda signaled the Vixen the next day. When Tau climbed aboard to the sound of creaking ropes and masts as the ship rats skylarked overhead, Inda waved at him from the cabin.
As soon as Tau shut the door Inda said with an odd expression, more pained than rueful, “What did you say to Evred? He told me to explain to you what honor means, beginning with how we always keep our vows. Phew!”
“Well, I tried,” Tau said, hating the futility of his words—of weeks of effort.
He rowed himself back to Vixen.
Fox watched him leave. Wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. Next morning he was alone on deck with Barend just before the dawn watch change. They’d both checked sky, sea, and sails, before Barend was ready to take command, and Fox to rouse the morning watch for drill before he retired. “Your cousin,” he said, “seems determined to force Inda to succeed where the Venn failed.”
Barend squinted his way. “In what?”
“Conquering the world.”
Barend was silent a long time, then turned his squint skyward. “We brought Inda to it. Whatever happens, I’ll back him.”
Chapter Thirty-one
KHANERENTH still rode with the alliance.
Aboard the Khanerenth flagship, the conversation was superficially about customs, kingdoms, accords—finding the meaning of words in other languages—but the real subject was who was going to find out what Indevan Algara-Vayir, their unbeatable commander, was going to do next. Until then, Inda had always been open (if not blunt) about what was on his mind. The two times they’d seen him since everyone sailed away from Geranda he’d not only been evasive, but uncomfortable to a disturbing degree. So everyone turned to Lord Taumad Dei for explanation, but all they got were vague assurances and expert deflection through
questions about their own thoughts on matters—they’d leave, having lengthily aired their views, and not realize until they reached their ships that, yet again, they had no idea what Inda was going to do next.
Mehayan and Hamazhav wrote to their king, asking permission to leave the alliance. Both were told variations of, Stay with Elgar at least as far as the Chwahir coast and make sure they sail on into the strait. We don’t want you arriving home just to discover the rest of them entering our harbors next season, swords at the ready.
“Altruism,” Dhalshev said to Mehayan, “is what we all claim at the treaty table. It’s expected. We cloak naked self-interest in a wish to serve others, mix it with a modicum of goodwill, and then hope to find a balance.”
Mehayan leaned over to freshen their wine cups, first with the good blue wine from Gyrn, and then with the mulling rod. It hissed, filling the cabin with the heady aromas of hot spice. “That is so, that is so.” He laid the rod back on the grill above the Fire Stick in the cabin’s ceramic furnace.
“Lord Taumad, despite his silver tongue and golden looks, is one of us,” Hamazhav murmured, lifting his glass in salute.
Dhalshev said, “Inda is one of the only two people I’ve ever met who I think of as altruists. Though maybe I don’t understand what that really means.”
Hamazhav raised his brows. Mehayan uttered a barking laugh. “I’ll know if you and I mean the same thing if you tell me your second one.”
“Jeje sa Jeje. My first real talk with her, she told me how to defend the island. She could have taken my map to Inda. I saw her evaluate it in a single glance. I couldn’t have stopped them—I was hard pressed between you, the Fire Island rats of the time, and the remnants of the Brotherhood.”
The others chuckled appreciatively.
“I have yet to converse with him alone,” Hamazhav murmured. “He is quite elusive for so uncouth a figure. Yet everything I hear paints a picture of an old hero, a paragon.”
“A paragon with no manners.” Mehayan barked another laugh. “Eats like a dog at his dish, ignores the table’s prominent person, and converses on Old Sartoran verse forms with the least important person at table without comprehending the insult handed to the rest.”