Kitty smiled sourly between her horse’s hairy ears as they raced across the boring, white-covered plains south of Choreid Dhelerei. If she could have rescued everyone and looked like a hero, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Well, maybe she’d at least get a mention in Marloven records, if Senrid managed to pull them safely through this current mess.
As long as it never got any more dangerous, she decided finally, she didn’t really mind being the person in charge of the names.
As the weeks slipped by, they rode from Chardaus to Zheirban, and then up toward the region called Eveneth (where they were to meet at a farmhouse), and then on to yet another town. It seemed miraculous that they were never chased.
Oh, they saw plenty of warriors galloping this way and that along the roads, and sometimes cross-country. But Senrid looked like another skinny light-haired kid, of which there were Plenty. Nobody stopped them, or if they did, the messenger badge invariably got them the nod to pass on their way Race on, rather.
Kitty noted sourly that nobody in Marloven Hess ever seemed to walk anywhere, or take carriages, like civilized people. They all rode, and what’s more, they rode fast. Though she had no interest whatsoever in horses, she couldn’t help but learn a bit about them—such as the fact that the ones everyone raved about all came from the Nelkereth plains, which were beyond Vasande Leror’s own eastern border. Nobody lived there. People didn’t settle there because of some old treaty. The Marlovens were the ones who’d had it forced on them, and they in turn enforced it lest their neighbors get grabby. In Vasande Leror Nelkereth horses, or cross-breeds, were common enough, but no one trained them like these Marlovens did, or rode with those minimal saddles, more like pads, and the merest halter just to hold reins, rather than heavy bridles and bits that were common other places. The horses here seemed almost different creatures.
And the Marlovens did not use the Nelkereth horses for work, only for riding. Other kinds did other jobs. The smell of horse was everywhere, horse and wool, for tunics and cloaks. Droppings were wanded in the cities, and along the roads, like at home, but here it was the military that seemed responsible. At home there was a guild.
Riding seemed a part of life in Marloven Hess, like rising at dawn, and scarcely ever stopping to eat. No wonder Senna got sick, the way he’d stay up late yakking and babbling away to these idiots he’d never met, and would probably never see again, but oh no, would he ever sleep in? Huh! It was as if Tdanerenf appeared with the cold winter sun each day, and they had to rise before it and gallop on.
At least, she thought when midway through the third week they started out right at dawn in order to get ahead of an approaching storm, she’d gotten used to riding.
While she brooded on these subjects, Senrid brooded on the same ones, but from his perspective.
He watched the gray clouds advancing from the west and wondered if the series of storms that had blasted through were a result of his spell earlier in the month, or if winter would have been harsh anyway.
He wouldn’t let the weather slow him. He couldn’t let it.
He sensed the spreading net of information going out, settling its protection over him; the patrols either ignored him, or if they had to stop, the questions were suspiciously few. But the new, uncertain alliance between the white-magic faction and a goodly portion of the kingdom’s civilian population wasn’t going to be able to protect him forever.
He knew Tdanerend had to be sitting on the throne in Choreid Dhelerei demanding daily reports, and ordering ridings out to investigate every reported sighting, faked sightings that his growing net of allies helpfully sent in.
And indeed, every day, from every corner of the kingdom, reports were relayed in of short, blond boys spotted riding about. Some days, up to fifteen separate sightings. Those reports with enough detail to investigate proved to be true enough, there were short blond boys riding about—but none of them were Senrid. Tdanerend, enraged and anxious, could fault no one for lack of cooperation: angry as he was, there was no way around the fact that the description of Senrid apparently fit seven out often boys in the kingdom.
What Senrid didn’t know—and wished he could find out—was how much the military were cooperating, at least obliquely, by dutifully chasing down shadows and not pursuing those who cast them.
As he rode, he considered each conversation he’d had, wincing over his own lapses, and pondering what others said—and what they didn’t say.
He still didn’t know who that tough old woman was who’d faced him in Berdua, and he was desperate to get home and plunge into research. Home. Choreid Dhelerei would either be his home, or he’d be dead. He could never walk away and leave it behind, the way Leander had talked of leaving his land.
Instead, as his hands numbed on the reins of his new mount, and he fought against the intermittent cough, he thought about home. He’d probably keep his bedroom. Why not? But for a study, it made so much more sense to choose a room nearby, and what better room than that one downstairs, with its row of four tall windows looking westward across the academy and the plains beyond? That would be a work room, his own. No more the pretentious cavern down in the government wing, with its vaulted ceilings and frigid air and lack of natural light. It made reading old magic books needlessly difficult (glowglobes being ‘weakness’); maybe that was another reason Tdanerend was a rotten mage.
The prospect of the pending march did not worry Senrid. All the signs were there, it would happen. The people, whatever their motivations—and he was learning a lot about that—were going to rise on the turn of the month, and converge on Choreid Dhelerei. And the light cavalry wouldn’t ride them down. He suspected if they refused direct orders, the foot would also refuse.
What came after obsessed him because he couldn’t really plan for it. He did not know what Tdanerend would do.
He did not know what he himself would do.
And he did not know if that souleater from Norsunder was lurking around—We will continue our discourse when I choose—or what he would do.
Senrid hadn’t performed any magic, not even the smallest zaplight or illusion, but he took scant comfort from the idea that that man couldn’t trace him through magic. Ordinary mages couldn’t trace him. Despite his bluster to Hibern, he sensed that this Detlev was an order of magnitude different, and who knew what he could or couldn’t do—or why. Again, he longed desperately to be at home, researching this new threat. Despite the verbal engagements with the people he’d been meeting, being away from home, from magic and research an messengers, made him feel blinded.
“But you appear to have promised a houseful of trades-people that you would provide for a civilian judiciary.”
The man smiled, his voice urbane and not at all accusatory, but Senrid gritted his teeth.
“I didn’t promise.”
“Your words as reported have implied it,” was the prompt, gentle answer.
The prosperous-looking farmers and traders crowded into the tavern’s upper room stayed silent, impossible to read. The spokesman—so many of them had not offered names, and Senrid had not asked—continued to peel an apple, the little gold knife steady in his fingers.
Senrid looked down at his own hands. It had been easy to say that he’d consider what sounded so reasonable, but on further consideration he knew that such a promise would anger the Jarls. They sat in judgment over civilian as well as regional military matters, except in capital cases. He knew that. It was one of the few concrete facts he had been able to learn about governmental process, if only by accident, when Tdanerend had presided over a jurisdiction question several years before, and he’d made Senrid sit on the great throne and corroborate his judgment. But some civilians maintained that the Jarls knew only military matters, not those of land or trade, and therefore they ought to be heard and judged by peers.
What other words of his had been misreported? That his conversations were being spread from mouth to ear he’d seen the evidence of already—questio
ns following on answers he’d given previously. Fast as he and Kitty had been, word, it appeared, traveled faster.
“I didn’t promise,” he repeated. “I said it sounded reasonable. Obviously it’s a question to raise at Convocation. See how the Jarls feel.”
“They will dislike it immensely,” the man answered. In his fingers the long peel curled, like a red ribbon, down from the fruit. “Surely you must comprehend.”
From elsewhere in the tavern wafted the smells of food. Under the smell of stale ale in this room, Senrid whiffed fresh bread and some kind of peppery fish sauce. His insides gnawed, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since early morning, and that had been a few hasty bites, interrupted by…
He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t think past the noise from the common room below: the clinks of cutlery and dishes and occasional shouts of laughter from local people who either didn’t know what was going on, or didn’t care.
Senrid realized his attention had splintered, and he refocused. The man who’d been observing him looked amused.
He finished peeling the apple, then said, “No one… appreciates, let us say, their powers summarily being curtailed.” Dark eyes lifted from the knife to Senrid’s own gaze.
The instructive tone was polite enough, but Senrid knew an insult when he heard it. For a king he was a sure, easy target—a short kid who had no weapons, no strength, and no personal guard to ensure his prestige. For a red-glaring moment he wished he did have a full complement of armed guards at his back, and he felt a jab of understanding, for the first time, of Tdanerend’s tendency to use violence to beat down dissent.
I can’t, he thought. Even if I ever get the throne back if I send minions to muzzle beasts like this one, then I show that the minions are where the real power lies. And so people will court the minions. I have to be smarter, and quicker, than the beasts, until I get stronger.
What to answer? There was no answer, not yet. “I’ll remember your words,” he said evenly. “And you.” And hoped his tone was as ambiguous as he meant it to be.
Humor narrowed the man’s eyes for about a heartbeat, and then he bit into his apple, stood and left, his finely made but anonymous wool robe swinging. Regional governor? Assistant. Local landowner? Senrid did not know who he was—and forced himself not to ask.
That interview was over, but others lingered to assault Senrid with questions, most of which required only that he say, “I’ll look into that,” or, “Yes, I agree.” Last to be listened to were grievances against Tdanerend—all of them justified—and a few complaints about other guilds, or the army, or the local Jan, and then he was alone with Kitty, who yawned fiercely as she sauntered in from an adjacent room.
“That man in the black robe was a fathead,” she said, scowling over her shoulder. “He treated you like a little boy. If he’d treated me like a little—”
Senrid cut in tiredly, “Where to?”
“Nowhere,” Kitty stated, crossing her arms. “No, I’ve given up on asking for that stupid promise back, because I know you’re too selfish and rock-headed to care what happens to other people, but I do care about being hungry and tired, and if you drop down sick again from not eating enough, then I’ll be alone in this nasty, rotten stinkpot of a kingdom. So I will tell you after we go somewhere. To eat. And rest.”
From habit Senrid ignored all the bluster and took the point. He remembered from the map that the posting house for regional runners was a fairly short ride away.
“All right. We’ll eat. Then ride.”
Kitty put her nose in the air and marched out before him, because she couldn’t hide her expression of relief that she’d gotten half her demand.
They remounted their tired horses, who showed a brief revival of energy after unseen hands had tended them and fed them while the kids were in the tavern.
The snowdrifts were very high, and progress was slow. It was nearly sunset when they reached the posting house. Senrid was surprised to see from the brown, churned snow that this particular spot—otherwise fairly isolated—had seen plenty of traffic that day. Recent, from the crisp edges of the hoof prints.
Instantly wary, he watched for signs of betrayal as they rode to the stable doors and dismounted. No assault team was stationed round the court, though: the stable was full of horses.
The only person they saw was a tall girl who came out to collect their mounts. Senrid flashed the badge, got a puzzled look and then a quick nod and grin, and inside they trod, tired, cold, and hungry, Senrid relaxing by degrees when the only sounds they heard were the high chatter of kid voices. No rumble of adults.
Heat, the smells of food and the sense of too many People in a close building thickened the air. They entered the long, plain mess that was common to all the posting houses—and a whisper riffled through the huge gathering of kids, and then silence. An expectant silence, a tense one.
All the faces turned their way. In the back, Senrid saw their stablehand. She grinned and waved.
So the word had caught up with the kid population, huh? At least, the kids who lived and worked on the perimeter of the military, not quite civilian, not quite with the prestige of the real warriors or academy boys: the runners, wanders, stable-hands, yearling-trainers, and the like. Senrid considered the waiting faces. This confrontation was inevitable—he should have foreseen it. He wished it could have happened after food and rest, and not before.
Kitty repressed a groan. Were they ever going to be able to eat? It looked like Senrid was in for yet another meeting, this time with kids. Kitty looked them over, saw a mixture of liveries and civilian dress. She’d never seen so many Marloven kids in one place before. Except for Fern and Collet, the ones she’d met so far had either ignored her or been too shy to talk.
A girl at one of the front tables said, “Are you in truth the king?”
Kitty glanced from the girl to Senrid, who really did look pretty much like most of the other kids there, except he wasn’t wearing anyone’s livery. He still had on the old tunic of Leander’s, shirt, trousers, riding boots, and the cloak he’d been wearing all along, like she wore the same gown and her sturdiest winter mocs. He had no sword, and folds of his handkerchief stuck out of one of his pockets.
Senrid said, “Yes.”
The girl exchanged looks with two or three other girls, then said, “Will there be changes, if you depose the Regent?”
Senrid said, “If you mean academy trials, yes. No more boy-bar. Merit only. If I can get the Jarls to agree.” He flashed that nasty smile. “And I intend to. Even if might take a couple of years.”
Buzzing round the room. Most of the girls were pleased, but not all the boys. Stupid twit Jarls, Kitty thought narrowly—not that she would ever want to go to their stupid academy and learn how to be a disgusting Marloven villain. But these girls ought to get their chance if they wanted it.
Senrid watched the mixed reaction, and breathed slowly. He sensed what was coming next.
A boy stood up in the back. “Regent said you avoided academy-trial. You were too weak.”
“Wrong,” Senrid said. “He kept me away.”
More looks. Kids were direct. After days of adults’ oblique insults, and disbelief, and testing, and skepticism, it was almost a relief to deal with the blunt black-and-white judgment of peers.
“So let’s see what you can do,” another boy called—one who didn’t stand up.
“All right,” Senrid said, and blew his nose so it wouldn’t run in the middle of the fight they were all here to witness.
If it was a sword challenge, then he was going to have to talk fast, because otherwise he’d be completely humiliated. He didn’t have a sword, but a few here did. If only—
A tall, strong-looking kid was surreptitiously nudged and urged by fierce whisperings. He got to his feet, and walked, in silence, between the long tables. He wore Waldevan stable livery. And no sword.
Senrid slid off his cloak, slung it over a chair, but it slipped to the floor. Heard an hoarse whisper,
“He’s a runt!”
Senrid felt the ready energy that anger always provides, and he smiled up at the volunteer. “What’s your choice?”
The kid looked awkward. “You choose.”
Senrid said, “I’d as soon no one gets gutted, so—” He flicked out his knives. Whispers, then silence. He set them on an empty chair in a corner. Next the tunic, which he folded and laid over the back of the chair. Standing there in his shirt and trousers, he said, “Hands.” And held his out.
The tall boy had a dagger in his riding boot. He pulled it free, and tossed it on top of Senrid’s two, then carefully folded his livery tunic and laid it over Senrid’s.
Senrid was peripherally aware of Kyale picking up his cloak and moving back. The two boys circled one another, Senrid assessing the way Keriam had trained him. By the time the kid made his first move, he knew he had won; Keriam’s training was first-rate, it was what the best of the academy boys got, and this boy was mostly untrained, obviously used to relying on size and strength alone.
Senrid also sensed that thumping the kid right off would be a humiliation that would make him an enemy. He was going to have to win it—somehow—with finesse.
Kitty watched, feeling vaguely sick. Of course she didn’t care what happened to Senrid—after she got safely home. Until then, she’d as soon not see him killed by some idiot much bigger and heavier.
But how to stop this creepy fight? Not one of the kids watching showed the least sign of interfering. Kitty slid her sweaty fingers over her bodice, where she kept her secret weapon. Not that it was the least use here. But it made her feel stronger; she backed up quickly as the boys circled near.
Then the big one reached, took hold of Senrid’s arm—and before Kitty could pull in enough breath to yell a warning the boys turned into a blur of arms and legs. Wham! They hit the wooden floor, grunting and rolling, and then—to her surprise—Senrid ended up on top.
But only for a moment. One of his coughing fits hit him, hard, and he rolled Backward. His head hit the floor with a thok!