Treason's Shore (113 page)

It was a full three months later that Rat Cassad, sent by Evred on special duty, met them at the ancient Marlovan inn at Hesea Spring, where the three great roads converged.

Inda and Barend arrived on hired mounts to find Cassad pennons planted out front, and Cassad waiting inside, with a host of armsmen.

Cassad looked the two tired travelers over, their shabby sea clothing, Inda’s arm in a sling, no weapons in sight, and waved off his armsmen.

“Drink,” he said, pushing mugs of ale toward them. He added, as they thirstily downed the good home ale, “My Runners spotted you days ago. Truth is, I don’t really know if I’m an Honor Guard or a Watch Guard.”

Inda’s smile faded. “I will not interfere with whatever orders Evred has given you,” he said bleakly.

Cassad sighed. “You are an idiot, Inda. At first he thought you were dead. The locket didn’t work. But the ring still moved—and he thought—” His eyes met Barend’s, and he faltered. “Well, never mind. He’s waiting.”

Evred was on the watch long before dawn the next day. He shut the doors against everyone, even his wife, and stood glass in hand at the window of his office at the archive, which was closer to the main gate than his private office at the residence, which overlooked the academy. For months he had fought his way through the entire range of human emotions, taking both sides of imagined conversations, but nothing prepared him for the sight, at last, of the thin figure, arm in a sling, face shockingly like his father’s, that rode in the midst of Cassad’s armsmen late that morning.

The banners and the horns signaled the approach of Cassad. Evred had not told his people to expect the Harskialdna, and Rat had not sent Gallopers ahead.

He watched the riders until they reached the gates, watched the morning light reflect in Inda’s eyes as he lifted his head to study the walls. Studied every detail, from the untidy sailor’s queue and the gold-mounted rubies Inda still wore in his ears to the long, dusty unlaced shirt, vest, deck trousers, mocs. There was no sign of the Marlovan about him, though he rode like one; Evred was still pondering that when they rode in the gates and vanished from view.

Vedrid was waiting in the stable.

Inda raised a hand in greeting, then said under his breath, “Well, what’s it to be? The garrison prison again for me?”

Vedrid turned up his palm. “He’s waiting.”

Barend dismounted.

Vedrid said to him, “Alone.”

Barend didn’t make any overt threat, but his stance shifted, both hands within reach of weapons. “I’m going with him. It’s why I’m here.”

Vedrid struck his fist over his heart. “As you will, Barend-Dal.”

Barend grinned. “You mean on my head be the fire.”

Vedrid did not smile back. There was far too much tension spreading through the castle with the news that the Harskialdna was back.

Vedrid was about to offer Inda the chance to visit his rooms and dress properly, then he hesitated at even that. His orders had been exact. “Come with me,” was all he said.

The two followed him upstairs and down silent halls, past watching guards. At last the door opened, and there was Evred, wearing his old gray riding coat, booted feet planted on the great crimson rug, hands behind his back, his face an unsettling reminder of his father and his uncle.

Evred nodded dismissal to Vedrid, then turned his head, brows raised. “Barend?”

“Whatever happens to him happens to me.” Barend raised a thin hand, palm out, as Inda pulled from his gear the carefully wrapped copy of the treaty. “You may’s well know that I signed that treaty, too, as trade envoy.”

Evred winced, looked away, then back. “Leave, Barend. Nothing is going to happen now. Just leave us alone.”

Barend turned from one to the other, and when Inda tipped his head toward the door he gave a slight shrug. After a last, speculative glance at his cousin, he went out, and shut the door softly behind him.

Chapter Thirty-three

I
NDA brushed his good hand down his sailor’s togs. “Sorry about the ship gear. I handed off my coat to the fellow pretending to be me before I left. Didn’t want to borrow any coming down here, things being how they are.”

Evred pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose but the drum and surge of heart and blood would not go away. “Inda. You know what our law is.”

“Yes.”

“You know why we have that law.”

“Yes.”

“You know that to show favoritism is to show weakness, and you can name every Jarl who will be panting at the gate in hopes I’ll open the way to compromise.”

“Yes.” Inda’s voice was so low, and tired. “Yes, Evred, I’ll stand up against the wall. Or if you’re going to flay me at the post, then do it. I won’t argue. I know what I did. Please. Just do it.”

“I do not want to do it,” Evred retorted with barely suppressed violence.

Inda recoiled a step. Never had he heard that tone in Evred’s voice. Then he thought,
I earned it.

Evred didn’t see the reaction. He paced the room. Too easy to superimpose Inda’s face over that of Hawkeye’s father, almost ten years ago, dying at the post one flesh-ripping cut of the whip at a time.

Evred had spent his entire kingship proving his strength and determination to the Jarls, underscoring that no one stood outside the law. And here was Inda, ready to submit. His old friends would submit, but he could envision the censure in their eyes. None would interfere, or it would have happened by now. One of Evred’s many nightmares in recent weeks had been of waking to an army of Inda’s friends riding at his back. Except that Inda would not have permitted that to happen.

The only ones who would take pleasure in the proceedings would be Horsebutt and old Ola-Vayir and his cronies, and that not because of any sense of justice, but entirely because they wanted to see Evred in humiliation and defeat over the disgraced Harskialdna he’d promoted above them all.

And all because of the Marlovan oath binding one’s honor to obedience to orders, the oath that Anderle Montrei-Vayir, Evred’s own ancestor, had made law.

Evred knew the justifications, but he’d also dug in the records back far enough that he could not avoid the truth: his ancestor had made that oath law because he had broken trust when he stabbed Savarend Montredavan-An in the back.

Evred whirled around. “Inda, you swore before Convocation to be my Harskialdna. To serve as my Voice. And you accepted my order before the entire Convocation.”

“Yes.” Inda spoke to the floor. “But I came to see that the order was wrong.”

The white lightning of rage stilled Evred—he did not even breathe. But the battle for self-control was as old as he was. When he trusted himself to speak, “So Taumad Dei talked you into that?”

Inda looked up. “No. That is, I’d already come to that conclusion before we talked. Tau stayed out of it, after those notes he sent to you. I think he figured out the cost if you didn’t agree to his treaty.” A thumb toward the open window and great parade ground below, where Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir’s father had died the death of treason. From beyond floated the voices of boys at training, calling “Yip! Yip! Yip!”

Inda lifted his head, listening, and then turned away from the window, his expression bleak. “I tried to explain to you, but those little pieces of paper—I never was any good at writing—”

“Explain it to me now.”

Inda groped left-handed in the air, then began the old pacing, though limping in a way painful to watch, his right arm dangling because it didn’t seem proper to have it in the sling. “It’s Tdor’s net. That’s how I think of it.”

“I am not calling Tdor to defend herself.” Evred flicked out his hand.

Inda’s face whitened.

Evred took a swift step toward him, and then whirled away, and paced to the window. “That was an attempt at humor. Forgive me. The matter is entirely between us, Harvaldar and Harskialdna.” He turned his head. “Whatever happens, at no time will your family suffer, you have my promise on that.”

Inda sighed. “It’s right for my life to be forfeit. There was a day . . .” He stared into the distance. “I told you about my conversation with Ramis of the
Knife
. But in general. I don’t remember telling you what he said just before he sent me away. I didn’t pay that much attention at the time. I was seventeen or so, I thought I knew what I was doing. And why.”

He paused, and Evred said, “Go on.”

Inda closed his eyes.
“Consider how many of our kings and heroes define honor by the worthiness of their enemies. Things will only change when we define honor by our works.”
He opened his eyes again. “That might not be every word, but it’s the gist of it. By our works. Just before I took ship again. I was in the north, wearing civ. Stocking cap on. No one saw these damn rubies. No one knew who I was. The wind was right, so I knew we’d sail on the tide, but I saw a glassmaker. I stood there outside his window all afternoon. Just watching him make a goblet.” His gaze went diffuse, his words slowed to a rumble in his chest. “He
made
things. I’ve never made anything in my life. Other than a couple of shirts. For myself. When I was a ship rat. I’ve just destroyed things. People. Ships. Land, if you count what a battle does to the ground. Maybe there’s some unseen court of justice somewhere that will be satisfied if I bleed my life out on those stones down there.” He hooked his thumb back toward the parade ground. “All I could see was that the alliance had come to trust me. High to low. Even Deliyeth, when I kept to my word. It was a net of mutual trust, d’you see? It was strong enough for them to follow me into battle against the Venn, though we were outnumbered.”

Inda paused, looked up, then down, and back to Evred, and again, his gaze was too painful to meet. Evred walked to the window, and closed his eyes as he listened.

“If I took those harbors, I’d spend the rest of my life killing people to keep ’em. Not just strangers, coming at me with a sword. People I knew. Fought alongside. Who didn’t want us ruling them, while I forced them to it. I’d probably win because we’re stronger, but I’d lose their trust forever.”

“Their convenience—their
trust,
as you say—took precedence over mine, over the trust of your peers at Convocation?”

Inda sighed. “Don’t you see? To the Jarls those other kingdoms don’t matter. They don’t care about the strait. Most of them couldn’t name a single kingdom along there if you asked. They wanted me to win glory, and they would never understand that our glory to the people on the other side of the continent was . . . was . . . was the beginning of an evil empire to replace the Venn.”

Evil empire
. Where had Evred heard that phrase? Vedrid, years ago.
My mother, too, telling me that in the eyes of the world, I was wrong.

Wrong. Could he be wrong? He’d read enough of Sartoran history to discover what people thought of the circular thinking of some kings: the king could not be wrong because he was the king.

His father had said that the people had to be able to trust the king to hear the truth. So what was the truth here? Evred knew he was not evil. He made no decision for his personal pleasure. Everything he did was for the kingdom.

And Inda had broken his oath.

Anger burned through Evred, and he felt the words form—the words that would lead, inexorably, to Inda ending up against that post, bleeding out his life in the sands that should have soaked up Rajnir’s cursed blood. Again that twist deep inside, the distortion of the sexual urge he had never permitted himself to express before Inda.

He struggled to control it, to reach for reason. He was poised on the knife edge. “I have to keep my promises,” Evred began, feeling the pull of will, of his own righteousness . . . then paused at the prod of memory.
Promises
. . . The words
I promise
.

Where he spoke them: the road to Andahi, spring of 3914. Standing in the mud, staring at Jeje sa Jeje’s defiant face. What had he said?
If I am ever angry enough to throw a kingdom at Inda . . . I promise I will halt long enough to summon you to defend him.