Banner of the Damned (99 page)

I withdrew into my tower to bury myself in the wards, to be interrupted a few days later by Anhar, who came to request a token for her yearly return to Colend.

After she left, I prowled around my tower, unsettled. The atmosphere of the castle seemed unbalanced. I attributed the sharper voices, the sense of heightened alert to the preparation for New Year’s, and consciously avoided everyone.

So I decided to see Kaidas’s return home. I wanted to see Birdy again but safely, through Kaidas’s eyes. I could not bear the thought of listening to Birdy himself. My guilt oppressed me, for I knew that he would think I had rejected him. And in a sense I had, but only to protect him.

Mindful of the seven or so hours that Colend lay ahead in the progress of the sun, I chose a morning hour and discovered Kaidas in the middle of a party. He breathed in the scents of mulled wine and dried flowers as softly modulated voices conversed. We really did sound like we chanted or sang, I found, after these eight years of consonant-sharp Marloven. Kaidas’s interest in the guests was mild. He wanted to go upstairs to the schoolroom: memory, suffused with annoyance, Carola saying,
Vasande may stay among company for a turn of the glass. He requires practice being social. But his manners disallow his remaining.
And Kaidas’s annoyance increased to sharpness when she added in her calm lisp,
By the time I was eight, I could be trusted an entire day downstairs
, thereby indicting Vasande’s Lassiter half for their son’s shortcomings.

Kaidas remained on the other side of the room from Carola, but I got the sense that it was from long habit, because he scarcely looked her way. I was intrigued by the fact that they did not speak to one another. Something had changed with her, and as Kaidas suppressed his impatience to escape to the schoolroom and talked on about a horse race with people I did not know and had no interest in, I considered shifting to Carola to find out what had happened. Especially as this party did not include scribes or others in service.

But then, on Kaidas’s periphery, Tatia walked by, her glance so ugly that I shifted to her, to be knocked out of the connection by her wrath. The boy! I braced myself and returned.

Tatia had crossed the room by then. She was fawning on some distant cousin whom she secretly despised. I shut out her voice (and as much of her poisonous emotion as I could) and reached for memory. There was the cause, a recent conversation that Tatia kept recalling, ever more angry: Carola saying
I want a daughter who is mine. I don’t care how long it takes, or what means are necessary. With or without Kaidas, I will have a child who is mine, and she will be a daughter.

And when Tatia tried to offer remonstrance, Carola turned her shoulder.
Tatia, my mind is made up. Now that Kaidas is home for good, he and I will address this matter. It is none of your concern.

It’s time to get rid of that brat
, Tatia repeated to herself. But how?

There is no use in prolonging this appalling episode. Over the next two days, as Tatia pondered the way to avoid blame but hurt Kaidas and Carola the most (with mounting self-justification) I pondered what to do with the knowledge if she did make the transition from what-if to action. Because this much I’d learned: people entertained what-ifs in their minds, usually without expecting them to happen, no matter whether the accompanying emotion was vindication, idle longing, or simply entertainment.

I checked in once on Kaidas, at the Hour of Rose, when most work was done for the day. And this time I caught him visiting the place where Birdy lived—a cottage shared with three other scribes. Birdy had a little sitting room of his own where the three sat, spiced wine and elegant bread-bites at hand. Oh, the leap of happiness when I saw Birdy’s face—a little older, but otherwise the same, and so very dear.

“… sorry your correspondent has neglected to respond,” Kaidas was saying.

“I think I bored her into abandoning it,” Birdy said ruefully. “Neglect was never her weakness.”

In the background, Anhar spoke, “Emras is always busy. We seldom see her, sometimes for weeks on end.”

“I trust we will not abandon our discussions, especially now that I am returned for good,” Kaidas said. “I hoped we could pick up from where we left off, our comparison of our empire built on trade, and the Chwahirs’ built on tyranny.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s built on tyranny,” Birdy said. “When I was there, they were fond enough of Jurac.”

“They don’t have to hate a tyrant,” Kaidas said. “You should have heard the Chwahir ambassador in the past couple of years, ever since Jurac’s Folly. Everything is for the good of the Chwahir.”

Birdy said, “There was a lot of that when I was there. Old signs, old rules. Always for the good of the people.”

“Which is more overbearing than the tyrant everyone hates. I wonder if Jurac really believes that everything he does is for the people’s good? If trying to capture Lasva was to improve the Chwahir culture? He would not be troubled by conscience—he could perpetrate far worse rules than the evil king of ballads, and still think himself just.”

Birdy laughed. “From what I could tell during my time there, the Chwahir are loyal. When they aren’t, they have a habit of rather summary execution of their monarchs. So the king has to talk up the Good of the People…”

Oh, how it hurt me, to hear them talking back and forth with such ease and interest! Nearly overwhelming was the sense that I had lost something precious. It was better not to listen to Birdy at all, even through Kaidas. Those old feelings were better left unstirred.

I returned to Tatia and discovered her carefully unpicking the hidden support seams on Vasande’s saddle, as she rehearsed the next step constantly in her mind: bring baked oat-and-molasses treats to the stall of Vasande’s favorite horse, and while the animal was feeding, insert a small stone under a back shoe. It was no longer possible, as the queen had said: it was probable.

I still hadn’t found a way to reveal her plot without revealing myself. But I felt I had to act. I could not prevent a kingdom from going to war, but I had the information to save one child. I needed only the means.

So many things can go wrong with anonymous notes, beginning with the person never finding it, but I did not know what else to do. After tearing up too many attempts at an explanation without revealing the source, I finally settled on a scrollcase note to Kaidas:
If you wish to save your son’s life, observe your son’s riding lesson tomorrow. Do not reveal yourself.

If Carola was still spying on him and got to it first, I did not know what might happen—except that Tatia would probably try another way. But he opened it and stood there puzzled, asking himself useless questions as I writhed with impatience.

I spent that night between Darchelde and the garden, constantly checking. Kaidas slept, but his dreams were a distasteful mix of memory and erotic components. I left quickly and returned to work another hour or two on the wards.

At the Hour of Daybreak, I found Kaidas in the Alarcansa barn hayloft, looking down at the stalls from above. I stayed there, gratified at his shock when Tatia stole into the barn, moving like a shadow. Kaidas watched her talking to the horse in a cooing voice. All he could see from above was that she was doing something at the animal’s hindquarter.

Before she scurried away she looked back once, her mouth twisted in a smirk of relief and triumph. He climbed down the ladder. None of the stable hands were about. He let himself into the horse’s stall, and ran his hands expertly over the horse’s back, legs, and finally, finally he checked the shoes. I waited in agony lest he miss the stone, but he was too expert for that. He pried it loose, soothing the horse, which had shifted uneasily, ears twitching back.

He stood there looking down at the stone on his palm, and then moved to the gear. Again he ran his hands expertly over everything, turning buckles and straps over, until he inserted his finger beneath the saddle—and jerked it out again. Then he called, “Benisar!”

A shout came from the far end of the barn, where there was a faint glow as the stable hands began their day. “My lord duke?” came a call.

“Bring a lantern.”

Kaidas waited where he was until the swinging yellow light appeared in the hands of a surprised stable hand.

“Did you see Lady Tatia in here earlier?” Kaidas asked.

“No one’s been here, that is, no one came through the palace door,” the man answered, staring at the saddle, where Kaidas wiggled his finger through the hole. The man flushed. “I’ll turn off Solin this day—the Young Heir’s equipment is his responsibility—”

“This is not Solin’s fault,” Kaidas said. “Thank you.” He hefted the saddle and started toward the palace, ordering the words he was going to speak to Carola and anticipating her questions and her refusal to believe anything he said about her cousin.

My concentration was beginning to blur. I released the contact, and
my head swam. Swiftly I transferred to Darchelde and fell onto my seat, gulping air.

When I dared to return, I found Kaidas in the middle of ordering servants about. They seemed to be packing. I was going to delve into his memory, when I decided to see it from Carola’s perspective.

I shifted—and found her closeted with Tatia, who wept, her thin hands covering her face. “… but he’s lying,” Tatia sobbed. “Someone is. Who wouldn’t even come forward—how could you believe an anonymous note?”

“Tatia, the fact that one of my servants was driven to be anonymous deeply disturbs me. Have they been corrupted? I am going to interview every servant, and if you have ever threatened any of them, or done anything like this before, you are going to make restitution.”

“I didn’t
do
anything. That Lassiter hummer lied about me! He’s always hated me!”

Carola paused, seized by memory: Kaidas, saying in the even voice of decision,
I beg to make it clear that I do not hold you responsible for Tatia’s action. However, I do hold you responsible for the poisonous atmosphere of this place, which I am ever more aware of on each return. I am going to remove my son not just from Tatia’s murderous intentions but from your anger. You are an angry woman, Carola, and anger begets anger.

“Kaidas has never lied to me,” Carola said to Tatia. “Whatever else you want to say about him I will not defend, except for this: he has always told me the truth.”

“
I
have always told you the truth.”

“I no longer believe that.”

“How could you accuse me, your most loyal companion, friend, cousin. You have called me sister!”

Carola turned away from her cousin and stared out into the courtyard.
Kaidas is right. I am so angry
, she thought.
I am so angry that I never knew I was angry
. The anger had dulled down into pain and shock.

She turned around, and the anger flared. “You lied
for
me, Tatia. You lied
for
me to the entire court, when you slandered Lasthavais Lirendi. The moment Kaidas left my chamber I sent the Chief Herald to petition the queen to have you written out of the line of succession. You can kill us all, but you will
never
have Alarcansa.”

SIX
O
F
S
WORDS AND THE
P
RESENCE OF
C
ATS

A

s I transferred back to the royal castle, I resolved never to look at Colend again. The matter with Tatia was finished, and the cost was too high. Besides the chance of discovery, there was Carola’s assumption that her own servants had written the note and her determination to interrogate them. This was a consequence I’d not foreseen. I did not know what collateral damage my action would do to innocent people.

Then there was the hurt I felt at seeing Birdy, even through someone else’s eyes. I did not need all those old feelings stirred up.

“What is your progress, Scribe?”

“I can see the remaining layers of wards,” I said to Ivandred. “There are eight.”

He gave me a nod of approval, and walked away. As always, I felt relief, and an exhortation to work harder.

Once again I buried myself in work, but my reward was always another visit to the dyr.

As I ran to the queen’s suite, I overheard the guards talking in the high
voices of celebration. The only person inside was the duty runner, a young Marloven girl. “Where is the gunvaer?” I asked.

“Not here,” was the reply.

“Do you know why the bells are clanging like that?”

She grinned, her eyes wide that the Sigradir was ignorant. “Victory ring,” she said. “Perideth fell. Jayad is safe, and Perideth—Fera—is ours again.”

A day later, the entire castle went wild again. The triumphant king had transferred back, to make military arrangements. Word winged all over that he would stay long enough to preside over a midnight victory bonfire, then he’d be off again. I did not expect to see him and so was surprised when everyone snapped into rigidity while I was at the garrison, busily putting purifying spells on a load of new buckets that would be heading south on a supply wagon.