King's Shield (14 page)

Inda drew in a sharp breath. “Then I wasn’t the only one?”

“You were the only academy boy exiled, and I do believe that was actually my father’s idea, or maybe Sindan’s. I saw my uncle’s papers after he died. Most of those he found a way to shift out of the possibility of command accepted disgrace, or their families accepted for them. You were the only one who stuck it out—and your father apparently was willing to back you.”

“I never knew that,” Inda said, and sighed. “How could I?”

“I would not say it before anyone else, because we must seem united, but it comes so clear in my uncle’s writings. He had a reason for everything he did because he trusted no one but himself and my father. The shadow of the assassin’s knife haunted him all his life, worsening when my grandfather died. Some said under suspicious circumstances, others believed it was a riding accident.”

“Your uncle thought it was conspiracy?”

“Oh, yes. Then he really did believe, or talk himself into believing, that any Vayir with the gift of command who didn’t fall right in behind him was a future danger to my father, to my brother. And so the best left the academy early—heaped with praise—to go home to guard, or if they were not Vayirs they were promoted—heaped with praise and promises—and sent to the borders. And to the coast.”

“Against the Brotherhood?”

“Yes. A few died in action, because his orders were always clear: we ride like our ancestors, commanders in the lead. Others died under circumstances that their personal Runners could not explain—the Runners who survived, and too often they all died too. Mysteries we might have solved if my uncle’s personal Runner, Retren Waldan, had lived, because apparently Waldan’s orders were never written. But he himself was assassinated after Yvana-Vayir’s Conspiracy. I don’t know by whom. Another mystery.”

“No one knows any of what you’re telling me?” Inda asked, grimacing.

“Only Hadand. And Barend, somewhat. He didn’t want to know the details, as his own father was behind them. Here’s what I am sure of. The only one who really understood command in the strategic sense, I believe, was Captain Sindan. When I look back, his suggestions to me were not just sensible, but far-reaching. And it was his grasp of Idayagan territory and tactics that turned the Battle of Ghael Hills from a terrible massacre into victory. But he is dead.”

Inda pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in the old, remembered gesture, then came the snort of decision, the outward flick of his hands. “All right. I’m just going to have to learn on the run. Well, I’ve done that all along.”

Tension released its grip on Evred’s skull.

Inda thumped his fist on a barrel top as they turned the corner outside a tavern. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I haven’t seen Marlovans drill for battle since I was a boy, and I’ve never seen them fight. You know I barely started training to fight on horseback, and isn’t that what we do?”

“We will drill on the march north. Every day.”

“Yes. Yes.” Inda turned his thumb up. “That to start. But Sponge,” a sudden turn, sidestepping a pack of tail-waving dogs being chased by laughing children, “what kind of battleground are we looking at? What can you tell me about the Idayagan terrain?”

“I know it well.”

“And you saw
our
limitations, which is a place to start.” Inda took a wider step to avoid another loose stone—where was all the road guild? Off defending the coast, probably. He grimaced. “Damn these boots anyway.”

“Boots?” Evred was bewildered.

“Cherry-Stripe’s old ones. He said they were soft as butter, but when you go barefoot most of the year—” A shrug. “What I need to know first is the exact terrain of the pass.”

“I’ll give you that. But we in turn need to know more about the Venn. If only you had gotten more detail from your source!”

“Well, we can ask,” Inda stated, and that was when they hit the stone wall.

“What? A Venn? Here?”

“Dag Signi. With the women.” Inda opened his hand toward the castle towering over them.

Evred’s face blanched. “You brought a Venn spy into my castle?”

“She’s not a spy, she’s a mage.”

“She’s a
what?
”

Inda stopped, looking up at the castle tower without seeing it. They were surrounded by haywains being brought from the storage sheds to the great stable yard, amid shouts and clopping hooves, and the smells of summer and horse and sweat, but Inda had gone blind and deaf.

Evred stilled, his rage visible to the men and women on the walls, who watched uneasily, some reaching for weapons.

Inda brought his chin down, his expression perplexed. “A mage, but on parole,” he said as he rubbed his eyes. “She can’t go back, they’d kill her.”

“All that could be a ruse. How do you know it’s true?”

Evred’s sharp voice caused Inda to swing around and crash head-on into the wall of Evred’s white anger. “I—I trust her.” He groped with one hand, a gesture of appeal. “I
love
her.” As if that explained everything.

Evred’s face had hardened, reminding Inda of Evred’s older brother, the Sierlaef: angry hazel eyes, the rigid stillness that threatened violence. “So pirates think with their prick?”

Inda stepped back abruptly, his earrings winking bloodred.

But Inda’s reaction was not nearly as intense as Evred’s own self-loathing: thinking with his own prick, wasn’t he, with all that agonizing over the angel-faced fellow he’d dismissed with the women? Who mounted the wrong horse first?

“As do Marlovans,” Evred said, breathing out hard. All the tension went out of his manner; he forced his voice to neutrality. “And probably Venn as well. Tell me about this woman. Why you brought her.”

Inda groped for words. “Signi can’t be a spy—her life is forfeit if she ever goes back. You know about their deep water navigation, right?”

“I remember Barend speaking of it.” Evred’s heart was beating fast.

“Well, she was on her way to Sartor to offer that knowledge to the Sartoran Mage Council, who in turn could give it to the world. Level things up on the sea. And circumvent Prince Rajnir’s plans. He’s the Venn heir, you know. He doesn’t just want us, he wants our entire continent.”

“So your mage is a traitor to her own people?”

Inda shook his head. “It’s not betrayal, don’t you see? It’s a greater cause. She was chosen, by one of their own, and lost everything in trying to see it through. Because I caught her. And then, well, by the time I learned all that, events brought us here.”

Evred now stood with his hands clasped behind his back, as he studied the weatherworn stones of the street. Reassured that the king was not in danger, the wall sentries turned their attention away and resumed their pacing.

Evred’s thoughts, accustomed now to the never-ending pressure of kingship, picked up the race yet again. He scouted ahead of Inda, because he must, but the first unreasoning rush of joy had been muted. “I see that there is far more here than I assumed, but we will have the time to explain. And your other woman? Is she also a mage?”

Inda laughed. “Jeje! No, Jeje came along to protect me against the wiles of kings.” Inda’s delight was the old transparent Inda—he expected his academy mate to share the jest.

Evred forced a smile. “I see! Behold me rabbiting with fear. Listen, Inda. I need to give some orders. Rearrange the day’s events so that we can discuss our plans, and you must watch the horsetail drills. You must also,” he added, “speak to Tdor.”

They had reached the great gate, where the next watch’s perimeter patrol riders reined in at the unexpected sight of the king, some stroking the tossing heads of their impatient horses.

Inda stopped to let them ride past, but they waited. Evred walked past, head bent and expression absorbed—another reminder that Inda was back among Marlovans, where everyone had a rank and a place.

“Tdor,” Inda repeated as he followed. “Is she here?”

“You did not see her? She was there with Hadand and me.”

Inda’s smile was rueful. “I saw Hadand, and you, and next thing I knew we were at Daggers.”

“You will see her anon,” Evred said, his plans now made. “Come, let’s go through to the academy. I have business that cannot wait, but I will give you an escort, and rejoin you the moment I can.”

Chapter Thirteen

SIGNI had begun to compose herself for the inevitable. Jeje answered Shendan’s rapid questions, which switched to Marlovan and back again like stormy wind shifts at sea. Jeje had picked up a lot of Marlovan on the ride from Cherry-Stripe’s. While she talked, she watched Signi, who seemed more and more still and silent.

Jeje finished with, “Finally there was the mystery rescue. Inda got captured when scouting the Venn in Ymar, and Fox went in alone and got him out. By the time the news got to Bren, before the Venn cut off anyone leaving Ymar, the gossip was that the two of ’em set fire to half the kingdom.”

“Good,” Shen stated, and then gave a fierce laugh. “I hope they burned it all down.”

Signi pressed her hands together; Tdor felt a wave of compassion when she saw tension in Signi’s fingers.

Jeje shrugged. “Dunno. All we know is the Venn are coming.”

“Coming after Inda and Fox?” Shen asked.

“More like after all of us. Marlovans, too. Invasion.”

“What exactly happened in Ymar? Before they torched it, I mean?”

“Inda won’t say.” Jeje’s voice was unexpectedly deep. “Anyone who dares ask Fox gets a nasty ‘Convince me it’s your business first’ for their pains.”

Shen laughed again. “That’s my brother! So what is Foxy doing now? Why didn’t he come home?”

Jeje turned a helpless look Signi’s way, struggling to find diplomatic words.

Shen flung up a hand to forestall her. “Never mind. I can see the shuffle coming. Save your breath for your soup. I will ask Inda himself.”

Dread tightened Signi’s neck at the casual reference to impending war. Her own chief Dag, Brit Valda, had said years ago,
It is a shame when we must regard a people as an enemy. It is a shame and a regret when the two peoples share so much. And it is a shame, a regret, and a tragedy when those peoples meet as individuals and find much to admire
. Signi knew that if Inda were to meet Fulla Durasnir, the commander of the Southern Fleet, they would probably become fast friends. If they could meet anywhere but in battle, that is, when they would do their best to kill one another because duty to king and country and honor required it.

Signi no longer regarded the Marlovans as enemies. So she cherished the spring-green glow around Hadand when she observed her with the
Yaga Ydrasal
, the Inward Eye of the Golden Tree. Green was good, it was the new life of the bud; so too was the rich tree-bark brown of Tdor’s spirit. These were good women, Signi could see it in their spirits, even if she could not yet understand many of their words to one another.

Shendan had just asked where Inda was when another of the women in blue entered. She spoke softly to Hadand, with a fast, revealing peek Signi’s way.

Comes my trial,
Signi thought. Here was the first hard rock in her road, as inevitable as rain.

Tdor watched uneasily as Signi rose in a swift, dignified manner, put her palms together, and followed Tesar out.

Hadand observed Signi’s resignation, and wondered how much she’d understood, despite Jeje’s assurance that Signi did not comprehend Marlovan. Was it possible she was a spy?

As soon as the door shut behind Tesar and Signi, Hadand took a deep breath. “It seems that she is a Venn.” And turned a questioning look Jeje’s way.

Jeje said, “Inda trusts her. Well, she’s the one who got us free o’ the Venn, there, when we fumbled into the whole soul-sucking fleet. She’s a renegade. Inda can tell you more. Or I guess she’s going to tell you herself, right? Is there some kind of trouble here?”

Hadand’s hands vanished into her sleeves. “Trouble, not necessarily, but questions, yes. I will attend. If Inda trusts her, then I owe it to him.” She turned to Tdor. “First, Evred requests you to finish showing Inda around. Give him news of home. He’s at the academy now. He might want to see . . . other things. Jeje, Shen, please feel free to rest here before we all meet at dinner.” She left.

He might want to see other things—but not Evred questioning his mage,
Jeje thought.

Shen put out a hand to stop Tdor, saying in Marlovan, “I will not be stabled here like an old mare. You and I are going to find Inda together.”

Tdor signified agreement, and they left.

Jeje turned to the untouched food. Over her years of sea-roaming she’d learned that, just as you could not command the wind, you never pass up a good meal, much less a chance to catch a nap. You never know what the next watch will bring.

 

 

 

Evred met Vedrid on his way inside. Vedrid reported that Inda’s Runner was getting a tour. Evred spared a heartbeat to mock himself for his earlier heart-gnawings. The golden-haired fellow was Inda’s First Runner, not his lover. Proof again that emotions were not only useless, but dangerous.

He sent Vedrid to show Inda the academy.

He sent another Runner to summon the mage.

He chose his study over his more formal (and formidable) rooms in an attempt to mitigate the circumstances, which Signi took as a well-meant gesture, though it failed its purpose. He might as well have summoned her to the throne room amid armed guards, for she saw in the great raptor furnishings, the crimson-as-blood rug worked with golden-winged predator birds, the silence and shut door, mute testimony to kingly supremacy.

But she was not powerless. She had her brains and her magic.

Evred studied the small, sandy-haired older woman walking with smooth grace between two of his most trusted armsmen, Hadand just catching up. This was Inda’s lover? His inward vision of a tall, pale-haired version of the staggeringly beautiful Joret Dei vanished, leaving him puzzled indeed. The mage had to be ten years older than Evred himself, who had two years on Inda. She was ordinary in all ways, except in the manner she moved, neat and curiously compelling as she stepped forward, hands pressing together then opening. She bowed her head gravely.