Sareth says in her letters that sometimes it can take two years, sometimes four. She herself has born no child in the years since Degran, but for little Merrith who sickened and died so quickly. I think grief made Sareth barren. Jilli and Keriam also say it can take two years, just as Sareth said. They say we’re young—it will come soon. For the first year they believed it.
March 28th, Year 102 Interregnum
Arrow. Greenite Palace. West Gardens.
Egan is back in the palace. I say “back” but he has never been here before. Orrin had the palace built after the Duchy of Belpan surrendered to him, and Egan so rarely returns from campaigns that this is the first time he has laid eyes upon it.
He’s been wounded again. In the side this time, falling off a horse onto something sharp he says. Egan always seems to mend quickly though, as if he just won’t tolerate any kind of restraint, even if it’s his own body that tries to impose it.
I’ve been reading Roland of Thurtan’s On the Dreamlands and Below. I like to read it on the balcony that overlooks the herb gardens. The formal gardens are…well, too formal, and too large. I like to look over the herb gardens with their little pools, the sundial and the moondial that I had put there, and to breathe in the scents. Also, it’s not a book for reading indoors or in the dark. It only takes a paragraph or two of Roland of Thurtan before the walls seem to be closing in on you.
Egan practises with his sword in the grand square every day, in front of the statue of his father. There’s a sorcery in the way he moves. It reminds me of the dancers out of the Slav lands, those elfin creatures all grace and air, though he adds force to their grace. It’s not until he brings in men to spar with that you understand how fast he is. He makes them look silly. Even the best among the palace guard.
Something in him scares me though. The passion with which he pursues each victory. Watch him fight and you wonder if there would be anything he might not do in order to have what he wants.
April 15th, Year 102 Interregnum
Arrow. Greenite Palace. Herb gardens.
Egan is still here. He recovered quickly, although they say it was a dire wound. He seemed eager to heal and be back doing what he loves—cutting a path through anyone who opposes Orrin. But now he idles around the palace. He even came into the library today—a place I’ve never seen him.
I both like and don’t like the way he looks at me. Some animal part of me relishes it. Every reasonable part of me is offended. Although I can find nothing to like in Egan that does not start with what my eyes give me of him, there is still a mystery there. When he watches me it is with an instinctive understanding of women that is denied to the wise. Denied to Orrin.
Orrin and Egan are on campaign again this summer. The days are long and hot and lonely though there must be a thousand souls in this palace of ours, at least fifty of them ladies of quality brought in just to keep me company.
I have learned to travel in dreams, keeping every part of me focused and lucid though I walk through the realms of possibility and of impossibility. Or sometimes fly, or swim, or gallop. The path of the world is a line, a single thread through the vastness of dream, and if I follow that line I can scry what is real rather than wallow in the randomness of strangers’ imaginations. I have sent messengers out to explore the places that I have visited in this manner, and confirmed the truth of my observations.
I dreamed of Jorg of Ancrath last night and in dreaming of him became tangled in the stuff of his own nightmares. The margins of his dreaming are set with briar so thick and sharp I woke expecting my nightclothes to be shredded and soaked with blood. And a storm rages over it all, so fierce it shook the sleep from me. It seemed almost as if he’d set barriers to keep intruders out. Or perhaps it was all my own imagination. I can hardly send out messengers to check.
This morning my head aches, the quill shakes in my hand, and I see the page through slitted eyes. They give fennel powder in Arrow rather than wormwood—it works no better. I would swap the pain behind my eyes for the cuts of that briar, but it seems to be the price I pay for pushing into the dreams of others.
May 22nd, Year 102 Interregnum
Arrow. Greenite Palace. Grand Library.
Orrin writes me that he has employed Sageous as an advisor of sorts! The heathen had settled in the court of Duke Normardy after fleeing Olidan’s protection. Orrin writes that Sageous has proved useful in foreseeing the lie of the land ahead of their path and in interpreting certain troubled dreams he has suffered.
I have written back by fastest rider to beg Orrin to dismiss the heathen immediately. I would have written “hang” for “dismiss” but Orrin is too…even handed for that.
June 23rd, Year 102 Interregnum
I tried to visit Orrin’s dreams as I have done every night since I discovered the capacity for it. Tonight I could find no trace of him, just a space in the dreamscape where I sought him, just blankness and the memory of the spice, the coriander seed that the heathen seems to breathe.
In desperation I sought out Egan in his sleep but found no trace of him either. The others in Orrin’s retinue I haven’t enough familiarity with to find among the hundreds of thousands who shape the dream-stuff.
I’ve a new physician, a dirty little man from the Slav steppes, but his infusions calm my head. He’s older than old and what words he has of Empire Tongue are oddly shaped. Even so, Lord Malas makes good report of him and his medicines work.
June 26th, Year 102 Interregnum
I found Orrin dreaming! I couldn’t walk in his dream, a golden thing of many layers, but it seemed to me that he has fought off whatever attempts Sageous has made to control him. Maybe he was right about being the one to hold the strings. It troubles me though that I am kept out. Perhaps it is a barrier fashioned by the heathen, or a defence of Orrin’s own making, whether by conscious will or natural resistance to direction.
Where Jorg kept me out with thorns and lightning, Orrin used a calm and simple refusal. I hope he has sent Sageous scampering back to Olidan Ancrath in the Tall Castle.
July 12th, Year 102 Interregnum
Arrow. Greenite Palace. Ballroom.
This palace has stood for almost two years and no one has danced in the ballroom. Orrin would host a ball to please me, have his lords and ladies descend upon the palace in their carriages. Hundreds would come in satin and lace. He would dance with the precision and grace that amazed his tutors, be attentive to my needs, compliment the musicians. And all the time I would know that behind his eyes grander thoughts were circulating, plans, philosophies, letters being written, and that when the last revellers had been taken home dead drunk across their carriage seats, Orrin would be found in the library scribbling notes in the margins of some weighty tome.
Egan has written to me from the celebrations after the capture of Orlanth’s last castle. I say it is Egan but I have never seen his hand before. It would surprise me if he has ever written a letter until now. Perhaps a scribe set it down for him, for the characters are formed with practised skill, but the voice is Egan’s. He wrote:
Katherine,
We have Orlanth from the western plains to the borders of the Ken Marshes. Orrin concerns himself with plans for Baron Kennick. He will play politic, offer terms, massage the old man’s ego. We should just roll through there without pause and leave it smoking in our wake.
Orrin has sent me to Castle Traliegh in Conaught, it stands in the middle of nowhere. After the excesses of East Haven he says he worries for me. He says I need rest.
I need rest like I need poison. What I require is to be tempered in the forge of war and to pitch exhausted into dreamless sleep each night.
Conaught is a haunted place. I dream such dreams here. I stare at the walls and fear the night. Even though I dream of you. They are not good dreams.
I don’t know what to do. Orrin will hear no wrong of his brother. I have seen it before. Somehow he always finds an angle from which Egan’s deeds can be viewed as excusable.
&n
bsp; I’ve never done anything to encourage this passion, this obsession, in Egan. I favoured Orrin from the start. If I had wanted a savage I could have smiled on Jorg of Ancrath, and what a creature I would have been tied to then.
Orrin needs to send Egan away, to give him some castle on a disputed border, some war to occupy him. It can’t be that he needs his brother always at his side. One blade can’t turn a battle, surely, no matter how skilled.
July 18th, Year 102 Interregnum
I have searched for Egan in the dreamscape and he is still hidden from me. The messages I send go unreplied. I don’t even know if the riders are reaching Orrin’s army. Report has it that he is closing on the Renar Highlands. Part of me wonders if Sageous is Jorg Ancrath’s tool. Has he unleashed his father’s pet upon my husband?
October 28th, Year 102 Interregnum
I found Egan’s dreams but they were dark and closed to me. I sensed the heathen’s handiwork and worry at his plans. Has Orrin proved too difficult to steer? Egan would be easier, like a bull goaded this way and that by the fluttering of rags. It’s maddening to be closeted in this palace with all that matters unfolding three hundred miles away.
October 29th, Year 102 Interregnum
Still no word from Orrin or from Egan, but reports come in of tens of thousands on the move, men under arms, all converging on the Highlands, and of Jorg Ancrath skulking in his single castle with less than a twentieth part of that force.
And still I worry. For Orrin with his cleverness and strength and patience and wisdom. Even for Egan with his fire and his skill. Because I remember Jorg of Ancrath and the look in his eye, and the scars he carries, and the echoes of his deeds that still vibrate through the dreamscape. I remember him, and I would worry if Orrin had ten times the number and Jorg stood alone.
November 1st, Year 102 Interregnum
I made a dream, a thing of light and shadows, and set it dancing in the head of Marcus Gohal, captain of the palace guard. It made it easier for him to agree with me when I demanded that he assemble a suitable force to guard me on my journey to my husband’s side. It made him forget all thoughts of arguing. Instead he nodded, clicked his heels in the way the men of Arrow do, and gathered four hundred lancers to escort me south.
We set off early, before the dawn stole shadow from the sky, and we rode out at a gentle pace, the horses’ breath puffing in clouds before them, the leaves golden and crimson on the trees as the first light found them.
And I felt watched, as if someone on high were paying close attention.
Brother Gog I miss. There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone.
48
Wedding day
“This is madness, Jorg. God made the Prince of Arrow to stand behind a sword. That’s what everyone says about him. He’s not like other men, not with a blade in hand. He’s not human.” Makin stood before the throne now, as if he were going to block my way.
“And it will turn out that he was born to die behind one too,” I said.
“I’ve seen him fight.” Makin shook his head. “I hope you’ve got something up your sleeve, Jorg.”
“Of course,” I said.
Makin’s shoulders fell as he relaxed a touch. Uncle Robert smiled.
“The best damn sword arm in history is what I’ve got up my sleeve.”
The protests started immediately, a chorus of them, as if my court had filled with disgruntled geese.
“Gentlemen!” I stood from my throne. “Your lack of faith dismays me. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m dismayed. If the Prince of Arrow accepts my challenge I will meet him on the field and find victory there.”
I pushed past Makin. “You!” I pointed to a random knight. “Get my herald here.” I felt reasonably sure I had a herald. I turned and looked Makin in the eye. “I did tell you that I fought Sword-master Shimon, didn’t I?”
“A thousand times.” He sighed and glanced at Lord Robert.
“Shimon said you were good, Jorg,” Uncle Robert said. “One of the best he’s seen in forty years.”
“You see!” I cried. “You see?”
“But he met Orrin of Arrow two years later and judged him the better blade. And Orrin’s brother Egan is said to be the more deadly of the two by a considerable margin.”
“I was fourteen! I’m a man now. Full grown. I can beat Makin here with a chair leg. Trust me. I’ll have the Prince of Arrow down and bleeding before he even sees my sword.”
The levity was something made for show. I would fight the Prince. Win or lose, chance or no chance. The madness Sageous had set in me had been burned away and I would dare the odds against victory, however slim, but still—I had killed my brother. Flame could not consume that guilt. I would carry it with me to the battlefield and maybe they would bury it with me.
They found Red Kent trapped beneath the charred corpses of Lord Jost’s men. I had him brought to the throne-room when I heard.
“You’ve looked better, Sir Kent,” I said.
He nodded. Two of my guard had carried him in, bound to a chair so he wouldn’t fall from it. “And felt better, Brother.” His voice came as a hoarse whisper from lungs scorched by blistering air.
Even now, when neither of us knew if he would live or die, Kent kept his eyes lowered, humble amongst lords and knights, despite me elevating him to their rank. He would throw himself into the teeth of an army given but slight encouragement, but a throne-room full of men more used to silk than leather made him cower.
I stepped from my throne and crouched before him. “I would give you something for the pain, Brother Kent, but I want you to make a battle of it. Fight these burns. Win. I’m offering no terms for surrender.” My own burn still screamed at me. Surely only an echo of Kent’s pain and that of others from the courtyard, but still, it gnawed at me, throbbing in my cheekbone and the orbit of my eye.
Something on the edge of vision caught my attention and I turned away from Kent, back toward the throne. Two oil lamps stood to either side of the dais, enamelled urns in black and red, set on wrought iron stands. The flame dancing on each wick within its glass cowl looked odd, too bright, too orange, taking on too many flame-shapes at once. I held my hand above the glass and could feel no heat, only a pulsing vital force that raced along my arm making me want to shout out.
Never open the box.
“Highness, the herald has returned.”
I snatched my hand back, almost guilty in the action. My herald stood at the doorway between two table-knights. He looked the part, handsome and tall in his livery, gold-spun and velvet.
“And what did the Prince of Arrow have to say to my offer?” I asked.
The herald paused, a gossip’s trick to draw in more listeners, though we could be no more intent.
“The Prince will meet you on the field of combat to decide the outcome of this battle,” he said.
I saw Makin shake his head.
“Well and good,” I said. “And did he name his ground, or accept my invitation to battle on the Runyard ridge?”
“The Prince felt the ridge to be constructed more from troll than from stone and has identified an area of flattish ground close to Rigden Rock, midway between the castle and the current position of his front line. He will bring five observers to watch from a distance of twenty yards and expects that you will do the same.”
“Tell him his choice is acceptable and I will join him there in an hour,” I said.
The herald bowed and set off to deliver my words.
“Makin, I’ll want you there. But first, get Olvin Green or if he’s dead then somebody good with arrow wounds. I want him and six strong men to get up to Coddin. Have them treat his injury there if he’s still alive and bring him down as soon as it is safe to move him.”
Makin nodded and left the throne-room without a word, just setting a hand to Kent’s shoulder as he passed.
“I’ll want Lord Robert with me, also Rike, Captain
Keppen, and Father Gomst.”
Uncle Robert lowered his head in agreement, then stepping onto the dais and bending close, “Why a priest? Good swords are what’s called for in case of treachery.”
“The Prince of Arrow will bring five good swords. I’m bringing three, plus an archer in case the bastard runs for it, and a priest so that in times to come the truth may be told concerning what occurred.”
I let them strap me into my armour, pieces of silvered steel, well crafted and without adornment. I carried no crest, no emblems on this mail. Decoration is for peacetime, for people playing games but not understanding that they do.
The Hundred War, you must know, is a game. And to win it you must play your pieces. The secret is to know that there is only one game and the only rules are your own. With the memory box gone I had all my plans in mind now. The trick was not to dwell on them—to give no edge of them for Sageous to take hold of. One slip and the game would be over.
Whilst the pageboys bolted and strapped and sweated, I held the Builders’ ring to my eye. For a moment I saw Miana through it, across the room, and wondered if she might fit her hand through the ring and wear it as a bracelet on that tiny wrist of hers. And then the image formed. The whole world before me as a jewel of blue and white. A canvas on which even all of empire would not look large.
A small motion of my fingertip along the ridged edge of the ring and the point of my perception fell to earth, faster than an arrow. Faster than a bullet even. Oh yes—I know of those.