King's Shield (84 page)

A moment later, there was the one they were calling the Pirate. No pretending it was an insult, not in that admiring, possessive tone of voice reserved for heroes. Stalgrid had no use whatever for heroes—unless they could serve him.

“Good morning, Indevan-Harskialdna,” he called, eyeing the fellow. He was medium in height, good shoulders and chest. He wore only a shirt; there were two white scars on one leg, and a long purple slash on the other. His feet were the same shade of brown as his face and hands, unlike everybody else’s.

Did he go barefoot, then, like the farm laborers?
This
fellow was a Harskialdna? If he was as stupid as Dannor said, then who really made his plans?

Inda was surprised to find Horsebutt alone in the baths, which he’d expected to be crammed full of captains, leaving the lake for the men. When Horsebutt spoke he sounded just like he had in the old days, like he was accusing you of something, even when he was pretending to be friendly.

“Good morning, Jarl,” Inda said, and set his towel down, hoping the fellow was leaving.

Stalgrid splashed out into the water. Not leaving then, just arrived, apparently. Inda sighed inwardly.

“Going to teach us fighting today?” Stalgrid asked, swimming all the way across his bath and then back, using wide strokes. There was definitely strut in the way he took up the whole bath. Was the man challenging him, or was this some kind of a sex lure?

Inda dropped onto one of the benches along the stone walls. “If Evred asks me to.”

Voices in the stairwell: the Marlo-Vayir brothers, sounded like. Stalgrid retreated to the other side of the bath, annoyed. He considered how to issue a challenge without sounding too insulting. He didn’t want Evred finding out and staying another week with his entire army. “I hope you will. I offer myself as a partner. I’m sure it will be most instructive,” he added, cleverly not defining what he meant by “it.”

Cherry-Stripe and Tuft were easing Buck down the stairs one at a time, Rat Cassad behind them. When Buck had been lowered slowly to a bench, his forehead dotted with sweat, he waved off Tuft and Rat, who threw off their robes and dove into the bath, causing a mighty surge. Cherry-Stripe began to help his brother get his shirt and bandages off.

Inda jumped up to help, which Buck permitted. They lifted the shirt off without it catching on Buck’s stump, which still hurt enough to make him weak in his one knee if it only brushed against something.

Too bad the Venn weren’t better fighters,
Stalgrid thought viciously. If there was one thing he hated, it was favorites. Buck Marlo-Vayir had been on the strut ever since the academy, when he was one of the Sierlaef’s favorites. Then, after the Sierlaef was killed (good riddance!) what does Buck do? Become one of Evred’s favorites.

He looks bad now,
Stalgrid thought as Cherry-Stripe loosened the bandage around his knee-stump and then bent to the one round Buck’s hips. When Stalgrid saw the red flesh around Buck’s groin, he looked away uneasily.

Cherry-Stripe threw off his robe and splashed down to help his brother. Inda pulled off his shirt and dropped down to the other side, presenting Stalgrid with an astonishing view of scars. Long ones, short ones, most of them gone white, but several pinkish and recent. Beneath those scars he was all rippling muscle.

Stalgrid grunted, for the first time regretting the last five years’ lack of real drill. He was a busy man, and his Rider Captain tended to the tedium. Maybe he should swing a sword again . . .

Inda and Cherry-Stripe eased Buck into the water. Buck hissed, head arched back. At a glance from Cherry-Stripe, Inda waded out into the water.

Stalgrid muttered to Rat, “What happened to him?”

“Venn went after joints, mostly,” Rat answered, low-voiced, as Inda ducked underwater and swam in a few powerful strokes. “One tried to tendon-slice Buck. Another got his other knee when he lifted his leg to avoid the first, a third mostly took off his arm, and he fell onto a fourth fellow’s sword. Nearly lost his parts.”

Stalgrid’s own parts constricted. He shifted his gaze to the water.

Buck leaned his sweaty forehead against his brother’s as Cherry-Stripe held him steady. “Let me die, Landred,” he breathed. “Let me die.”

 

 

 

They held the triumph the next night.

As many captains as they could fit into the hall were entertained sumptuously, with the very best Tya-Vayir’s kitchens (as well as those of their surrounding liege-houses) could offer. Braised fish fresh from the lake, braised potatoes (rice being rare, with Idayago’s lowland rice plantations all trampled up), buttered cabbage, perfectly crisped rye rolls, and after that, honey-and-nut cakes.

Imand’s First Runner, Hibern, had noticed that Inda only drank the ale, so they served the locally brewed dark ale as well as wine. Maybe that explained Inda’s mood, or maybe it was just the rise and fall of ballads, both the old ones—joined in by everyone—and the new.

Someone had added verses to Hawkeye’s old favorite, “Yvana Ride Thunder,” an ancient and somewhat self-serving song justifying Yvana ambitions, though it had a good, table-thumping rhythm and a chorus like a trumpet charge. The new verses vividly celebrated the five hundred men, most of whom had died at the top of the pass in order to hold the Venn back. Badger and Beaver (who had convinced Evred in their private conversation that they could swap half years as Jarl just as easily as they had intended to as Randaels) wept openly, hardly able to sing. The sight of those lifted faces and exalted voices from the Sindan-An, Tlen, and Tlennen clans choked Inda up. He was not the only one.

Noddy was given tribute with his share of songs as well. They weren’t great as songs—one was too plainly an obscure old ballad with new names inserted—but the singing was resolute and heart-deep. Nightingale and the Khani-Vayir captains listened to every word, drinking them straight into the spirit.

Evred did not relax until the speeches were done.

He’d said to Inda just before sitting down, “You’ll need to speak, you know.”

And Inda’s jaw dropped open. “Me? I’ve never made any speeches!”

“It doesn’t have to be long. My uncle scarcely said more than a couple of words, I’m told. But it’s traditional. Before you lead the ‘Hymn to the Fallen.’ ”

And so, after Stalgrid offered a toast to the Harvaldar and Harskialdna, Inda stood up and studied the rows of expectant faces. Emotion tightened his throat. He cleared it. “When the call went out. The king—” A hand toward Evred, sitting so still, his hands gripping his wine cup, his gaze in its depths. “—Evred-Harvaldar needed the Sier Danas. And they came.” He lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, one big hand groping, then turning palm up. “They came.”

It was the way he said those last two words, so simply, with the gruffness of undisguised grief, that caused many throats to tighten, and eyes to burn with tears of sorrow. And of pride.

Then he began the “Hymn to the Fallen,” at first a lone voice: everyone had expected more of a speech.

But Imand joined in a sweet, high, clear soprano, and Badger and Beaver joined, tuneless and loud, and by the tenth word they were all singing full-throated, the emotion all the more intense for being shared.

Then it was Evred’s turn.

He stood up. The room quieted. “You all have been hearing details about the two battles we fought. There was a third battle, far rougher than anything we saw.”

Some of the men looked up in surprise. Stalgrid scowled, uncertain; he hated surprises. Imand, Hibern, and the few other women all lifted their faces. They knew, as the women always knew.

And so should it be.
“The first Jarl I ever made was Dewlap Arveas. His first son was lost fighting pirates. He and his second son were lost when the Venn first arrived in their boats. That left Liet-Jarlan and two hundred women and girls to face nearly three hundred ships full of men.”

The silence had been comfortable, but the small noises of shifting fabric, whispers, quiet steps as Runners and servants moved about, had ceased.

“Two hundred women and girls. Against thousands.
Thousands.
Of enemies. When surrender was offered them, the Jarlan struck our banner herself, so that the Venn could not take it. And then they fought to the last. Because they fought to the last, we are able to celebrate today. They held off the invasion for what seems to have been two, almost three days. Long enough for Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir and Noddy-Turtle Toraca to reach that pinnacle.”

He paused. From across the room he could see the gleam of tears in Imand’s eyes, but her face was exalted.

“There are no songs yet, because most of us did not find out until we were already on the road to come home. But there will be songs.”

This time, he led the “Hymn to the Fallen” himself.

The volume of sound made glassware ring faintly, and Evred himself found his throat closing. But he must speak on; when the adulation that bound them into one inevitably faded, restoring them to individual ambitions, regrets, angers, and curiosity, they would be comparing memories of what he’d said. Whom he’d ignored. Such was human life.

So he said much the same as he had in Ala Larkadhe, knowing that those old words
glory, bravery, heroism
forever remembered, forever sung, weighted with fresh grief, and pride, and affection, carried meaning to those who sought meaning.

Then he shifted from the dead to the living, as it must be.

He praised Ola-Vayir, now gone home.

He praised Buck, so badly wounded in leading the charge at the river, and the ringing shout that went up—the men standing and raising their glasses—had its effect on Buck, who never should have been there. His glittering eyes, the flush in his thin face, all eased as Buck took in the tribute, and Evred waited, giving the men time to express their admiration. Giving Buck the time to look around the room at those shouting men, their fists held against their chests.

Then Evred praised Cherry-Stripe, whose ferocious covering flights of arrows from the heights kept the Venn from sweeping forward to a victory based on sheer mass.

He praised Tuft, who arrived so spectacularly, and he described Tuft’s thundering arrowhead charge that threw the Venn back over the top of the pass, which caused cheers and drumming on the table, Imand’s dishes rattling dangerously.

He ended by praising Cama, who was entrusted with following the Venn retreat. Cama was now a Jarl, which brought even more cheering.

Imand wiped away tears. Stalgrid showed his teeth in that false grin Evred had loathed since he was ten years old and watched the bigger boys at the academy games. Dannor’s mouth was twisted, and she tossed back more wine, longing for this tedium to end; Starand sent her a triumphant smirk. One of the captains had told Starand that Idayago was at least four times the size of Tya-Vayir.

Now the ritual was done.

Evred ended with formal thanks and dismissal to his Sier Danas, giving them leave to return home.

The Marlo-Vayirs were never subtle. They rose together, Buck aided by the ready Runners. Together with Cherry-Stripe their Runners carried Buck out and straight to the wagon already prepared and waiting. The brothers would not spend a moment more in Tya-Vayir than they had to; Buck was very soon insensible to the constant, searing pain, having drunk from his Runner’s anxious hand a mixture of green kinthus and liquor that probably would have killed a lighter man.

Rat and Tuft did their best to make conversation with their hosts as benches scraped and people began rising, talking in low voices, some repeating stories, or singing snatches of song, others discussing logistics of the long rides ahead.

Evred beckoned to Inda.

They walked out into the open air of the lakeshore. Evred didn’t trust Stalgrid not to have spy holes riddling the castle, so he waited until they were down by the rippling, plashing water. “If you are ready,” he said, “I want you to go home tomorrow. You have a long journey ahead, and I would like to have you and Tdor back in the royal city to make your oath at Convocation. Hadand will welcome Tdor as Harandviar. There is much work ahead for us all.”

Inda turned around to search Evred’s countenance in the golden light from the castle windows, but Evred gazed over the dark waters of the lake at the glimmering reflections of the stars.

“I will.” Inda touched hand to heart. “But about my marriage. If I’m your Harskialdna, does that mean Branid is going to be Adaluin?”

“Yes, of course.” Evred flung his hands behind him, clasping them tightly. “I wish there was a way to hand that rank off to Whipstick Noth. But Branid is Algara-Vayir. Reports state he’s been trying to cooperate, and is in fact eager about defense. He can have the title, it will probably keep him to duty. But I want your children to inherit, not his.”

Inda hit his fist to his chest, and Evred walked along the water’s edge under a clump of willow, and past a row of late-blooming queensblossom, the pale petals just opening.

Inda followed. Tau had been right: Evred’s mood had been terrible that first day they rode out, but not for long. He’d been quiet since, but not the tense, terrible quiet of those days right after the battle. Calmer. But not happy. Not the way you’d think a king would be after a terrible enemy ups and goes away, even if you didn’t really defeat him.

Hurry, Barend,
Inda thought.
He needs that treasure, in whatever form you bring it.

Evred said in a low, tired voice, “And when you get to the royal city we can discuss Durasnir’s words. I can’t see them returning next spring, not unless they have another invasion force waiting, and their kingship problems are all resolved. But it seemed he was trying to tell us something without actually telling us—”

“Ah, there you are. Enjoying the stars from the walls?”

They turned, Evred sharply, as Dannor walked up, hips a-swing. With supreme confidence she walked right between them, but her attention was fully on Inda. “It is beautiful here, is it not?” She plucked up some queensblossom, sending a sharp fragrance through the summer air. “Though damp, soooo damp in winter. Is Choraed Elgaer damp?”