Banner of the Damned (75 page)

That memory of happiness always betrayed her, for there under the memory was the ember of anger. Where did it come from? She was not an angry person. Her earliest memories were Marnda’s kindly, firm tone whispering over her head as she sat on her ponder chair,
Princesses are never angry. It makes them ugly, and princesses are always beautiful.
She could not get up from the ponder chair until her anger was conquered—and the last time she’d had to sit on that chair, she was no older than eight.

“What can I do to help you?” she asked, willing away the memories.

“What can I do for you?” He searched her eyes, as if trying to find the thoughts behind them. For in his way he was sensitive to muscle movement, and he sensed the complexities of her mood, though he could not understand them. He wanted her to be happy. He would do anything to make her so. “You have already done much, from the moment you gave up your home to come here. I would have stayed in Colend for a year. I think you know that. But you gave that up for me, and so.” He opened his hand toward the bedchamber. “And so we wake up here, instead of arriving straight to a dungeon, with Danrid as king. I wake up every day grateful to you.”

“I want to be busy. I want work that matters. You must tell me what a queen does.”

His expression altered as he considered, his twitch of shoulder, upward glance a little helpless. “We don’t have any custom for a gunvaer, not anymore.”

“New custom is not welcome?”

“Right now, they must see a continuation of agreed-on custom, all according to law. Do you see? If I obey the law, that forces the others to do so.”

“Will continuation of Marloven custom end the troubles, then?”

“Continuation of custom might circumvent the most obvious problems,” he said. “There are two things that we must do immediately. One, the city needs to see a proper memorial for my father. And we need to make ready for the jarls to arrive for renewing their vows as I take the throne.”

“And after?”

“Olavair is going to make a move, I am certain of it. And in the south, I had no time to settle Totha. My father knew I did not have time. I hit two castles from which I suspect raiders have originated. Left one of those false Jevair-green tunics on a lance to let them know that I had seen through the ruse. I want that to suffice, but it probably won’t.”

The watch bell rang then, and it was time for him to rise and get on with his tasks.

Lasva went straightaway to her own chamber, and there, wrapped in silk and imprisoned inside a beautiful darkwood box with herons inlaid in cedar, lay the lover’s cup.

She craved the peace of emptiness. She lifted her hand to fling the lover’s cup into the fireplace, but the light caught in the fine porcelain, glowing like something alive—the wing of a butterfly, the fragile curve of the ear of a young girl, as heedless of her own beauty as she was of the beauty of summer sunshine. Living hands had ground the ingredients to make this cup, had shaped it and fired it; wishes and dreams had been set into its constituents, and every touch of brush had been laid on with…

Love does not last
.

Why should art suffer, even if the humans who made the art were as transient as those butterflies? And so she dashed through to the private chamber where we did our fan form and thrust the box into my hands. “Hide it away,” she said, with tears along her lower lashes, her mouth tight. “Do not tell me where it is.” She whisked herself out.

I opened the box, lifted the heavy silk wrapper, and stared down in astonishment, recognizing at last one of the infamous lover’s cups Tiflis
had chirped about. I took the thing to my own room and looked around desperately. I had three pieces of furniture: a bed, a desk, a trunk. How could I hide anything?

Magic, of course. I set the box on the desk, cast an illusion over it, and returned, where I found Lasva stretching, her voice brisk, her gaze bright. We worked through our fan forms in the old way, and then faced one another, striking and blocking in the dueling dance, as she talked about how our lives would change.

Lasva then faced me, and I knew that here was the conversation that I had been dreading.

But she had seen that. “We will not talk about my sister’s orders,” she said. “I understand the dilemma you were placed in. All of you, but you especially with this astonishing command to learn magic. It was to my protection. Ivandred was expressive in your praise. He was far too graphic in his description of what would have happened to you had the king discovered what you were doing, and he insisted that only my ignorance would have protected me from sharing the same sentence. So I comprehend your silence.”

I bowed low, wretched with my falsity, for I hadn’t known about
that
threat. However, I also knew that to speak was to worsen things.

She continued, “I will only say this: your duty is no longer to my sister. It is to me, and to Ivandred. Regard our wills as united.”

I made another full bow.

“He has spoken with you about magic,” she said, still with that intent gaze. “What about?”

“Only the tasks at hand. Except once. Before New Year’s. He was very tired. Rode with us as long as he could. But when we stopped, he took me aside and showed me Marlovar Bridge. He talked about Inda, who was Elgar the Fox.” And at her gesture, I repeated the entire conversation.

“He never said anything like that to me,” she observed, and I bowed again, sick with apprehension that yet again I’d done wrong. But she said quickly, “Oh, Emras. I think it’s entirely due to the way you scribes are trained. You are easy to talk to. Safe. You stand there so quietly, and we are raised knowing that you cannot interfere, that you must keep our secrets. Merely, I am surprised that he should find it so, having not been raised the same way.”

She took a step, hands under her elbows, and I was astonished and disturbed to see a fresh bruise where I thought the edge of her robe had cast a shadow at her collarbone. There was another on her wrist. Who
could have bruised her but Ivandred? I had regarded him with the same wariness I regarded all the Marlovens, but also with the respect due his rank. Otherwise I spared him as little thought as ants think about the eagle drifting overhead. The sight of that bruise, however, evoked repugnance, even loathing.

But Lasva’s severity eased—she did not have the demeanor I would expect from someone abused. “Though we talk—much—about the kingdom, he seldom speaks of his inner life, and I am trying to understand him. It will come.” She let out her breath. “You and I find ourselves in new ranks of life. You must make the transfer tokens he asked for, as they ease his tasks. But for me, you must search the archives for something on queens—gunvaers. The good ones. What do they consider good, here? Did they ride as warriors at the head of lancers? Even with the best of intentions, I do not see myself performing such a role well.”

“If I may suggest without attempting to interfere?” I hoped this contravention of the rules would please her.

She made an impatient gesture, dashing away Colendi custom.

I said, “You might write to Ivandred’s sister. Or to his aunt.”

“His sister was mostly raised by his aunt, and she spent summers in Enaeran,” Lasva said. “But Ingrid-Jarlan? That is a very good idea, Emras. If anyone knows what a gunvaer traditionally did, it would be she.”

The jarlan came almost at once, and it was apparent to both Lasva and me that she was cognizant of everything that had happened. It became clear that she’d had steady communication with the captain of the female guards.

Ingrid-Jarlan looked around with open curiosity, indicated her approval with quick open-palmed gestures, and then Lasva invited her to sit, gesturing me to the scribe’s post.

The jarlan dropped down cross-legged at the table, sipped the Sartoran steep and blinked, her head a little tipped. “That has an odd flavor,” she said. “The taste reminds me of the smell of summer grass after rain. Now. To your purpose. I have been thinking about it. You have to know that I am at a disadvantage. My father, who had grown up hearing about how the women assassinated one of the last of the Olavair kings, refused to send me to the Academy. No one will accept a ruler who hasn’t been trained,” she said.

“So there are no customs of queens?”

“The last truly great gunvaer was Hadand Deheldegarthe. In Colend, did all compare your sister to your famous great-grandmother?”

Lasva made The Peace as she considered her answer.

But the jarlan did not expect one. She leaned forward. “Hadand’s daughter-by-marriage, who grew up under her tutelage, when our female academy was as great as the men’s, was the worst gunvaer in history. Among her many culpabilities, she disbanded
our
academy.”

“What was its purpose?” Lasva asked.

“The girls spent two years here, the first to ensure that the quality of their training was universal, but the second was really for them to know one another, so that they might band together to communicate and defend the kingdom. When Fabern-Gunvaer disbanded their training so that she would have more free time to pursue her lovers, that communication was lost within a generation. And so was our influence. We have never regained it except in short periods, when a king’s mother or sister was very strong. But if you wish to understand what makes a great gunvaer, then you must read Hadand Deheldegarthe’s letters.”

Lasva said, “I have not found any such in the library here.”

“Tchah!” Ingrid lifted the back of her hand, a gesture of rudeness. “The Olavairs destroyed everything they could of my family’s greatness. But Hadand’s daughter and niece saw that coming, and they made it their own work to collect all her letters before they died. I have them in the Darchelde archive. I can send them over.” Her lip curled. “There are very many. And difficult, for the language has changed somewhat. But if you read them, I promise you will understand what a gunvaer does.”

The jarlan retired to rest before the midnight bonfire. Lasva summoned me to her own chamber, and said, “You saw the day the king died that the guards listened to me, but that was not because I had authority, it was because I spoke in an absence of authority, what they call a clear chain of command. Does that match your perception?” She had switched to Marloven.

I made The Peace.

She twisted her hands together, then flung them apart. “I made an oath. I mean to keep it. And
melende
requires me to establish my own authority, instead of relying on that which Ivandred gives me. I can achieve nothing here if he must endorse every command I might give.”

I bowed over my pressed palms, completely out of my depth, for all
my training had been toward my absenting myself from influence—the Scribes’ First Rule.

Lasva gazed at the wide, flat Marloven plates on the table, then to the glimpse of barely-begun tapestry in the far room. “What
can
I achieve? I do not want authority just so that I can walk first through a door. I had a lifetime of that. Yet I am not and never will be, a war leader. Perhaps I can fill a need that they do not see. The Colendi have avoided war for centuries by refining the art of discourse, which becomes negotiation when the subject is a treaty.”

I bowed again.

Lasva got to her feet. “Go and rest. I have no idea how long this memorial bonfire might go, but judging from their usual habits, long or short, we will rise before the sun as always.”

E