Kings of the North (30 page)

“Get him to the infirmary,” the Marshal-General said. She turned to Baris. Arvid had cut his hands free, and the boy was rubbing his wrists. “So, Baris, can you walk? Or shall we carry you upstairs for a good meal?”

“I—I can walk,” he said. He staggered with his first step, but his gait steadied. He accepted help on the stairs, but beyond the bruises and paleness, he seemed unharmed.

The Training Master insisted on his cleaning up before a meal, but soon enough he was seated in the Training Master’s office with a tray in front of him and the Marshal-General and Arvid seated on either side. While he attacked his food, the adults talked of other things.

As the color came back into the boy’s face and his eating slowed,
the Marshal-General said, “Baris, can you tell us now what happened? You said a Marshal of Gird—do you know which one?”

“No, Marshal-General. It was my fault, anyway—”

“What was?”

“Tamis being involved. You know the older boys are in the upper bunks—he had the lower one. I woke up—I needed the pot—and as I was climbing down, I heard something—and I slipped and kicked Tam, by accident. He woke up. Then he heard it too.”

The rest of Baris’s story included seeing a grown man in a Marshal’s tabard in Arvid’s guest-room, stuffing Arvid’s clothes into his pack. The boys had watched; Baris had to keep shushing Tamis, who wanted to ask questions, but they’d been caught when the man came into the corridor. Before they could do anything, the man had knocked Tamis senseless; Baris, shocked to stillness for a moment, found himself gagged with a glove before he could cry out. He tried to struggle, but the man overpowered him with a few blows. A hand at his throat, and the next thing he knew, he was bound and gagged in the cellar, with Tamis beside him.

“Did you see anything distinctive about him?”

“No … well, he had something glittery around his neck.”

“Glittery?”

“I just saw it for a second, when he had my throat—a bit of it, anyway, where his shirt was open.”

“The necklace,” the Marshal-General said.

“I’m sure,” Arvid said. To Baris, he said, “You are lucky to have been found.”

“It was not luck,” Baris said. “It was Gird. I prayed, and I’m sure Tamis did, too. I knew someone would find us. How’s Tam?”

“In the infirmary,” Arvid said. “Luck came almost too late for him.”

“Gird came soon enough,” Baris said.

Arvid sighed. Apparently fear had driven the boy back into his narrow faith. He made another attempt to inject some realism into the discussion. “Gird punished you for trying to stop a thief?”

“No … it was a test …”

The Marshal-General gave Arvid a warning glance. “Baris, do you remember anything more about the man. Young, old, bearded, clean-shaven, dark hair or light?”

“There wasn’t much light. He was about as tall as you, Marshal-General, and his hair was … not black, and not really light. Brown, I guess. He had a short beard, like a lot of Marshals. Hair to here—” Baris touched his shoulder.

“Would he look like a Marshal out of that tabard, Baris?” Arvid asked. “Would you recognize him in ordinary garb, say, if he cut his hair?” The boy merely looked confused.

O
nce back in her office, Arianya summoned the Archivist to see what more had been learned from Luap’s scrolls while she was away.

“Quite a bit, Marshal-General, but the most important things may be these: that cloth we found was an altar cloth for the High Lord’s Hall made by a mageborn woman named Dorhaniya. That’s in both Luap’s writings and the records here. Gird himself gave permission for her to show it to a mageborn Sunlord priest named Aranha, and it was dedicated at the altar.”

“In Gird’s time?” Arianya asked. “I thought the rituals of Esea Sunlord were forbidden, as being tainted by blood magic.”

“It’s clear, Marshal-General, that our records of the period deviate from Luap’s and from the writings of his followers as we found them in Kolobia. Another thing—not all the scrolls Paks brought us are Luap’s. Some are even older than that, relating to events in Aarenis so distant in time, our only referents for the names and places are legendary. The language, too, is difficult.”

“But the altar-cloth,” Arianya said. “You’re sure it was made for the High Lord’s Hall and there was an actual priest of Esea Sunlord present?”

“According to Luap and the archives, Marshal-General.”

“I need to see it again,” Arianya said. “I believe I have seen a duplicate in Tsaia.” She described the cloth that wrapped a crown now
hidden from view, a crown from magelord times. “And,” she said, “a magelord lives now, magery unlocked, to whom that crown answers.”

“Answers?”

Arianya nodded. “I must talk to the Council about all this, but ask you to hold it close until I convene a Council meeting—but you scholars must know what to look for. That regalia is surely royal, from kings of old, and it speaks to Duke Dorrin Verrakai. Paksenarrion—whom I met again, and more must be told of that—helped unlock Dorrin Verrakai’s mage-powers and was there when the regalia first showed power. Dorrin Verrakai gave it to Tsaia’s king, as a coronation gift, and it lies presently in the king’s treasury, but only Dorrin Verrakai can move it. The crown is wrapped in a cloth that, to my memory and Paks’s, is the same design and style of embroidery as the cloth found in Kolobia. Moreover, that necklace Paks brought us—the sapphires and diamonds—is much the same design as the other regalia. Paks thinks it’s part of the set.” Arianya sighed. “I need all these threads untangled and the pattern laid clear, to know how best to proceed. Two years ago, I thought I understood all—now I know nothing, or so it seems.”

“Here’s the cloth, Marshal-General,” said one of the scholars, who had gone to fetch it. She unfolded its wrappings and laid it out.

“It’s the same,” Arianya said, leaning over it. The scholar hovered, as if to be sure Arianya didn’t touch those tiny stitches. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. An altar-cloth would be made to an older design … at least, I’m assuming the regalia are from before Luap’s time.”

“We haven’t started on the priest’s journal,” another scholar said.

“Another question,” Arianya said. “Have you found anything from Luap’s Stronghold to indicate that elves ever lived there?”

“Elves? No. Their holy symbol is carved there, and Luap said one appeared, along with a dwarf and a gnome, but no sign of their living understone. Why?”

“We never asked Paksenarrion, when she was a student here, about what she saw in the banast taig that became the elfane taig. And more—we never asked any of the elves visiting here, though some were of the Ladysforest.”

One of the scholars looked startled. “That’s true—we didn’t.”

“Glamour,” Arianya said, slapping her thigh. “They cozened us with a glamour, not to ask. Those patterns—in Kolobia and the High Lord’s Hall and that cave Gird found—they must be elven.”

“Or dwarven?”

“No. The rockfolk need no patterns to move in stone. We do. Elves do.” Arianya shook her head. “I don’t understand. But I will. And we must still record everything Arvid Semminson can remember about his encounters with Paksenarrion … any detail might be important, not just as a record of her deeds.”

Vonja outbounds

T
he cohort had just moved to a camp south and east of their first area, where the ruins of another village and its overgrown fields gave them a defensible position along an old east-west market road, now barely more than a track. Arcolin planned to stay there a hand of days to map the trails found in this section of forest before heading back to Cortes Vonja; sixty days past Midsummer was the end of their contract. He had the camp fortified as if for a longer stay: a ditch, staked in the bottom, a dirt parapet topped with brambles pushed down over upright stakes. On the fourth day, he called for a contest.

“If we just counted hits from the first day of practice, the sergeant would win by a double-fist—but to be fair to the rest of you, the bet will be decided in one contest. Fifty shots, twenty at two distances, ten at the nearest. A point for the nearest, two for the middle, three for the farthest.” He looked at Stammel, who seemed not at all daunted. Well—Stammel never minded being bested by someone who was actually better. “Some of you didn’t take the original bet, but you’ve all had the practice, so I’m telling you—for a jug of ale in Valdaire, you’re all in it. If Stammel wins, I hope he can drink that much …” Laughter. No one complained that Stammel’s guides—the two who gave him the direction and distance by calling from near the target—gave him unfair advantage.

All of them placed all ten shots in the near target, as he’d expected. In the middle distance, Stammel and two others—Coben and Suli—placed all twenty; the rest missed one to three each. In the long, no one hit with all twenty shots; Stammel and Coben both got nineteen, Suli eighteen.

Before Arcolin could decide what to do about the tie, scouts called a warning. Out of the tree line on two sides, the enemy appeared—in daylight as they had not before—a troop of horse and another of infantry. Fifty—sixty—his cohort was already falling back behind their defenses. The soldiers who had, a moment before, been laughing and cheering on their favorites were now already armed and positioning themselves. Another ten horse appeared, on another side. Arcolin had no time to wonder why the warning came so late or where such a small army had come from—he was back inside their barricade, glancing to see where Burek was—where he should be, taking command of the south side of the camp—when he saw Stammel still standing outside, crossbow raised.

“Stammel!” he yelled. Stammel didn’t answer or move. Arcolin’s heart lurched. Who had left him there? Who would—well, he had, thinking Stammel would follow his usual guide. “Stammel,” he yelled again. “Back! This way!” Beside him now, Suli started to climb the parapet. He grabbed her arm. “No—not you, Eyes.”

“I have to—”

One of the enemy yelled, then others. Stammel turned a little and released the bolt; immediately he bent, spanned the bow, placed another bolt, and again stood poised, waiting. Arcolin stared as the first bolt struck; a man went down. Another yell; another shot; another man went down. The enemy advance slowed. In the golden afternoon light, the bandage on Stammel’s eyes showed clearly, its ends fluttering in the breeze.

One of the horsemen yelled, spurring his horse forward. Stammel turned and shot. This time the bolt pierced the horse’s chest; it stumbled, went down; the rider fell and lay still. The other horsemen reined in.

Then Stammel’s voice: “I am the Blind Archer!”

The hair stood up on Arcolin’s body. “Holy Gird and Falk!” he muttered. Beside him, around him, others were muttering, too.

“You are one; we are many!” one of the horsemen yelled.

“I am the Blind Archer,” Stammel said again, releasing that bolt. The man who had yelled fell from his horse.

At the rear of the enemy, Arcolin could see a few men back away—not turning to run, but easing back from the others. One in the front rank leveled a crossbow at Stammel; Arcolin yelled—but the bolt missed Stammel by an arm’s length, and his return bolt dropped the man.

“Archers,” Stammel said, this time in his usual voice. “Volley fire.”

Suli pulled away from Arcolin’s grip and with the other archers stepped up on the parapet and on Arcolin’s count fired, some at the horsemen and some at the infantry. A few in each group went down. Return fire was ragged and ineffective, as Stammel—standing calmly alone and re-spanning his bow quickly between shots—hit one after another. Each time he called loudly, “I am the Blind Archer.” Arcolin called for volley after volley; the small group of horse on the far side, charging in as a distraction, could not get through the ditch and up the parapet. The less able at archery, those not formally in the archery group, had grabbed spare crossbows and picked off almost half the ten horsemen on that side as they tried to dismount and charge the barrier.

The enemy wavered, foot and horse both, and finally some charged forward while others turned away. The cohort sallied to meet those still coming, surrounding Stammel where he stood with a fixed smile on his face.