There was one good thing Dannor did, though she abandoned it as soon as she gained her goal of marriage and a title. That is the tapestry. Inda absolutely loathes it—insists the fellow in the center is a strutting snowball—but it looks quite splendid, and once the weavers returned, they taught me how to help.
We’ve been working at it during the cold nights, and making good progress.
A year or so after that, her letter was less joyful.
I can only bear the thought of my darling little Hadand going north to Darchelde because my precious Kendred has been born. He is so like Inda, he laughed almost from the first week; Inda fell in love at once, though he had another one of those sudden springs of tears when he first cupped his hand round Kendred’s head. “It’s fuzzy,” he said. “Like duck’s down.” Then he looked up and there were the tears, and he lifted his curved hand. “Noddy did this. Before the battle. Talking about his boy. I didn’t know what it meant.”
How can joy bring such sudden pain? Does pain ever bring joy? Anyway, I have been trying to overcome my own little sorrow at the prospect of losing Hadand. It does help, as Fareas-Iofre once promised me, that I know Shendan, and I know she will love Hadand as I love her, and my daughter’s life there will be good, betrothed to Marend’s new little son. My Hadand will even learn magic, from Signi’s book.
Inda halted his line when he drew even with the captain of the Darchelde perimeter patrol. He started to speak, then squinted. “Basna? That you?”
The captain grinned. “I think you’re mistaking me for my cousin Mardred? Er, he would have been Basna Tvei, back at the academy.”
Inda laughed aloud. “You look like him. What I remember.” He hefted a squarely built child with tousled brown hair escaping a knit cap, whom he had been carrying at his hip. “I’m here to bring my daughter to Darchelde.”
Captain Basna hesitated. The standing orders had been the same for years: no one to cross the border, except for betrothal home visits, and the fetching and delivery was done by Runners. It had been a generation since there’d been betrothal home visits, so had anything changed?
Inda said, “If you let us pass I’ll write to the king myself.” Thus taking responsibility for the breach of rules.
Basna saluted, fist to chest, and then reddened, because the scar-faced man with the ruby earrings was no longer a Harskialdna. But the rest of the men had also saluted. In a way, Indevan-Adaluin would always be Inda-Harskialdna.
The Riders watched as the Algara-Vayir Guard rode into the forbidden Montredavan-An territory, their gear jingling, the green-and-silver owl banner lifting in the wind.
Inda was intensely interested in seeing Darchelde again, after all these years. He’d discovered that on returning to places as an adult they usually diminished in size, as if memory reversed one’s growth. But Darchelde was just as magnificent as he had remembered, as large as the residence side of the royal castle, its design with its broach archways far more pleasing to the eye. Black-and-gold banners flew on the many towers. The sentries were mostly women.
Inda had not seen an outer perimeter as the road dipped into forest before emerging on the rise before the castle, but he doubted the Montredavan-Ans had been caught by surprise. And it was Fox himself who strolled out of the iron-studded doorway at the top of the double sweep of stairs as Inda’s party rode into the great court.
Fox looked exactly the same as ever, dressed entirely in black, no hint of Marlovan clothing except in the high blackweave riding boots they all wore, knife hilts winking at the tops.
“Inda,” he said, brows slanting up.
Inda braced for a comment about being let off the leash, but Fox just issued a few brief orders and got the Guard moving in one direction, horses led by the rein, and Hadand’s small baggage with Tdor’s Runner, who’d come along to see to the child’s care, in the other.
Marend then appeared—Fox’s wife. She exchanged a glance with Fox, a look that communicated without words, her expression amused, faintly sardonic, then kind when she bent down to little Hadand, who clung to Inda’s trousers with one fist, her other thumb in her mouth.
Marend was a distant cousin of Inda’s, but despite her Jaya-Vayir glossy black hair and black eyes, her demeanor was Montredavan-An. She addressed the shrinking child in a soft voice, and a few moments later, when Shendan appeared, carrying a year-old red-haired baby, Hadand loosened her death grip on Inda. She stared with interest at the baby.
The women soon coaxed her away, Inda handing to Marend Tdor’s thick letter packet full of notes about the two-year-old’s habits, likes, and dislikes.
Then Fox took Inda away to offer a tour. It was an easy day, ending up in Fox’s lair. “Was my father’s tower, you probably remember. When I was a boy all I could think about was the wretched stench of sour wine. But now . . .” He stood at the door in the round room, permitting Inda to look through the ring of arched windows.
The tower was the highest of the eight, which were not uniform in size. The view was spectacular. Inda turned in a slow circle, gazing at the depth of forest gradually giving way to winding river, silver in the westering sun, the purple hazed mountains southward, the mellow plains stretching away in the north. And in the west, he thought he caught the faintest glint of the sea.
Inda loved Tenthen Castle, and the land around it. But this vista was far more dramatic, making Inda wonder if beauty was a matter of contrasts as well as reach.
Then Fox drawled, “I resent even the possibility of functioning as someone’s errand boy, but when Ramis gave me the Knife, he told me to ask what you promised Noddy Toraca when he died.”
Fox knew it was a mistake to bring up the past, but only in a sense: he had a purpose. To hide that purpose, he had to sting Inda into response. He knew from old that Inda, pressed to remember, would go silent and brood. But the name Ramis was sure to bring a response, especially when one of Inda’s boyhood companions was mentioned in the same breath.
“I couldn’t hear him well,” Inda said finally. “I think it was ‘No more’ or maybe ‘No war.’ ‘No more’ makes more sense—he was in terrible pain. Anyway, I promised him. What else could I do?”
Fox let his breath trickle out. He remembered Ramis saying, What Toraca said was no more war. You decide if you want to tell Indevan: I tell you so you will understand what I offer.
“Ramis. Strange to hear that name again.” Inda waved a hand, then moved along the windows, tapping absently on the window seats.
Fox knew he only had a day or two at most, and there was no guarantee he could lure Inda back again, unless the remainder of the visit was pleasant. So he said, “You know I’m mewed up here. Can’t go anywhere. So it amuses me to delve into mysteries like Ramis, and other aspects of experience.”
Inda stopped pacing. “What experience?”
“Ours. Right now, though, yours, but only because I’ve been trying to figure out whether the academy is our biggest advantage, or our worst curse.”
Now he had Inda’s complete attention. Worrying about that, too, eh, Inda?
“Tell me this. You have to realize by now that if you’d taken that beating back when you were a scrub, you would have become the academy’s hero. Your brother Tanrid would have seen to that, if he’d had to thrash his way through the horsetail barracks.”
Inda rubbed his fingers over his old jaw scar. “True.”
“So. Knowing what you do, if you could go back. Would you take that beating?”
“That’s a strange question.”
“But an important one, when you ponder how much we’re trained to idealize violence.”
Inda dropped onto one of the window seats. “I don’t know.” He looked up with the old considering expression. “I guess the pain wouldn’t have been much worse than the broken ribs. Well, maybe. Not that I cared about pain—well, of course I did. Hated it. Anyone in his right mind hates it.”
“But you never flinched from it.”
“Well, that was true until Wafri h
ad me. I still flinch if someone reaches toward my head from the sides.” Inda gestured at the periphery of his vision. “Or touches my hair when I’m not expecting it.” He whooshed out his breath. “It was the humiliation more than the pain. No, that’s wrong, too. I would have taken that, if I’d thought I’d earned it. What I couldn’t stick was how standing up for that beating would mean that I was guilty. But I hadn’t done wrong. So . . . no, I wouldn’t.” He grimaced. “Are you saying I should have, so I could have become a hero? That’s disgusting. Besides, Evred’s uncle would have turfed me out of the academy no matter what I did.”
“Disgusting.” Inda was still politically naive, after all his experience. But this was one of the reasons Fox liked Inda—maybe it was a partial explanation of his popularity.
Fox went on to ask about some of Inda’s innovations at the academy, and on that subject Inda was ready to talk. Much as he loved being home, he did miss the academy. From there he slid into his own experiences during his scrub years. Fox sat and listened, and they dined there; when Inda yawned and wandered downstairs to sleep, Fox sat up through the night writing down everything Inda had said.
Inda left the following morning, downcast at the sound of Hadand’s shrieks as he rode away. Tdor had warned him. We all went through it, every woman you know. Shen will love her . . . and when she comes home next year, she’ll cry to leave them. But it only made him feel marginally better—and that not until he’d got beyond hearing those desolate wails.
When he reached the border again, and had waved to the patrol, he sent one of his Runners to the royal city. Evred had written to him a couple of times; Inda had never liked writing letters at any time, but during that excruciating period when he was arguing with Evred via tiny pieces of paper, he’d developed a real antipathy to it. So he only wrote, I took our Hadand to Darchelde. Fox and I talked about the academy, no war plans.
There were no repercussions from Inda’s breach of the rules, and so, the next year, Inda detoured from the summer ride of the Choraed Elgaer border to fetch Hadand home for her Name Day month.
The evening was warm. Fox invited Inda to sit up on the highest battlement, looking west at the setting sun as they reminisced, passing a pitcher of cold beer back and forth.
The beer, the splendid view, and Fox’s carefully casual questions gradually loosened Inda’s tongue.
The spring following:
Joret: Fareas-Iofre has returned to live with us, but she insists that she is senior woman only in name, and that the only work she wants to do is tutor grandchildren. As to the children, this summer Ndara Cassad comes to us for Kendred. It will be good to have two little girls again . . .
The years passed.
Tdor had a new habit, watching Inda’s training sessions with Jarend, Kendred, Whipstick’s Tanrid, and the other castle boys. They so often ended up with dust flying as Inda and his sons wrestled until Inda lay laughing in the dirt, the boys leaping on his stomach with no discipline whatsoever. Tdor could not explain even to herself the dizzying, sharp-edged elation the sight gave her. But sometimes the bliss was so intense it made her weep.
Inda began to look forward to his yearly visits with Fox, when he detoured off his route to fetch his daughter. Their talks ranged over reading, experience, speculation about the rest of the world.
One night, after talking about sailing, Inda said, “Do you miss the sea?”
“Yes,” Fox said. “I intend to go back.”
“To the navy?”
“No. From anything I hear, Barend is doing fine—and very few of the people we knew are left. I will stay here until my son is grown. He can take over the limited functions as Jarl—give him something to do. I’ll leave Marend to her mate. She and her miller have been tolerant, but I’m more like an embarrassing relation than a part of the family after all my time away.”
“So where will you go?”
Fox smiled. “You have to ask? That black ship is waiting for me. I will sail it around the world.”
“You mean Ramis’ Knife? Or, what did Durasnir call it, the Sun-Dragon?”
“Sinna-Drakan. That’s its old name. I’ve renamed it.”
“What?”
“Can’t you guess?” Fox gave Inda his old, toothy smile. “Treason.”
In Choraed Elgaer the seasons blended into years, good years overall, though there were the usual droughts and castle repairs and patrols to be made, roads to be maintained, and coastal vigilance kept up. And there were days when Inda thrashed and cried out in his sleep, and went around silent for a time afterward, and days when his joints hurt him, gradually more of them in winter.
Bringing us at last to a spring day fifteen years after they rode home from the royal city. New growth greened hills and trees, the sheep were lambing, and earlier that week the castle children had at last been released to run out to play.
That was the day the King’s Herskalt appeared in the court with Kendred’s longed-for invitation to the academy. The sturdy, brown-haired boy ran outside yipping to brag to the castle boys, leaving his father to read the letter sent by the king.
There were still occasional letters from Evred, always friendly, always about kingdom affairs, for Inda never again attended Convocation. Each spring he’d say, “Next year” but by the time autumn came, there was always some important reason keeping him at home. He did travel up to witness Jarend’s Games every year, after he left Darchelde. When he reached the royal city he was immediately surrounded by his old cronies. They’d exchange news and reminisce amid much laughter. Inda never told anyone how much it always hurt, that first sight of the royal city on the horizon—he couldn’t even explain it to himself. Nothing bad ever happened . . . but the pain was still there. Just like the nightmares that had never gone away.
Inda smiled down at the letter, then shook his head. “It feels like it was a hundred years ago when we were scrubs.” Then he went inside to continue getting ready for his spring ride.
That night, Tdor woke up to the sudden sound of rain and discovered that she was alone in bed.
Her mood turned from unease to acute worry when she could not find Inda. Not in the stable, or his rooms, or Whipstick’s office, or even out in the court. Her random checks became a methodical search, bottom to top, until at last, on the western wall, she found a figure lit by one of the magically burning torches—one of the many quiet gifts Signi had left behind on her single visit to Tenthen. She ran forward, and there she found Inda kneeling on the stone in the steady rain, arms wrapped tightly around himself, body shaking with noiseless grief.
Tdor flung herself down at his side, rain thrumming in her face. “Inda. My dear one. Is there danger? What is amiss?”
He turned away. “No, no. I’m sorry. I’m just being a fool.”
“Tell me.”
Inda shook his head. “I hate to load my ghosts onto you.”
“Ghosts!”
Inda shook his head. “It’s memory ghosts, not the ones that walk around.”
“Tell me.” She added with some asperity, “As for burdens, not knowing is far worse, because then I’m left wondering.”
He blinked rain away and looked into her face. “I’m sorry, Tdor. I don’t mean to be a burden. You know I’d do anything to rid myself of nightmares. This one was worse than the usual, that’s all.”
“We share,” she said, desperate to be understood, to not tread wrong. “If you can, tell me.”
“It was Dogpiss. I saw him, so real. Falling away, and I can’t reach his hand, and his eyes—I can still see them now, and it’s been what, thirty years? He’s falling, and I can’t catch him. I didn’t catch him, and he died. The Harskialdna was right to blame me—”
“Inda. It’s just not true.”
He dug his palm-heels into his eyes. “How many people have died because of me? I cannot count them all, though I relive those battles, nightmare after nightmare. What will happen to Kenda when he goes to the academy? The other boys all fight Jarend, just because
he’s my son. He doesn’t tell me, but I know.”
Tdor said slowly, “Jarend reminds me of Tanrid. He just shrugs those things off. Hadand invited him over for Restday as an excuse, after the healer reported he’d cracked a rib that first year. We didn’t tell you because it was Hastred Marlo-Vayir, the one they call Hot Rock. We didn’t want you and Buck angry with the boys, or with each other.” When she felt Inda’s slight shrug of understanding, she went on. “Jarend told her he figures he has to be tougher than the other boys if he’s going to be tough on an enemy.”
Inda sighed. “Kenda isn’t like that.”
“He will be popular because he makes everyone laugh. And Jarend will watch out for him there just as he does here. Inda, please see the truth, not your night fears. There is no more Anderle-Harskialdna, no more Venn threat. The academy runs exactly the way you yourself fashioned it. Hadand says that Evred will not consider the slightest alteration from what you did, because Gand says it’s the best it’s ever been, ever and ever.”
Inda let his breath out, and shifted, wincing. She recognized that there was pain in his joints, probably from sitting in the cold rain on the hard stone. She rose, taking his wrists and pulling him to his feet. His fingers wound tightly in hers as he said, “But don’t you see? Evred and I, we designed it all to make them ready for war. Hot Rock and Jarend fighting, they’re practicing for killing enemies. Is it true that he who spends his life getting ready finally goes looking?”
“They emphasize defense. You’ve heard Jarend when he comes home. Defense, just like you said back then. There is no plan for any wars; Hadand would have told me.”
Inda leaned his forehead against her collarbone as rain drummed on them both. She wound her long arms around him and held him against her, willing the grief away.