Treason's Shore (117 page)

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 had 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:

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.