Sasharia En Garde (39 page)

He balled up the paper and tossed it out one of the stern
windows into the storm.

o0o

Some welcomed the rain as a chance to escape snooping
eyes.

Just outside of Ellir two columns of cadets, riding inland
toward the siege war game they’d all been looking forward to, heard the horns
call for camp setup, and they gladly broke ranks. Cursing, laughing, calling
out insults, they dismounted and stumbled through the furious rain toward their
places.

Camp setup was something you began in your first year. The
senior cadets under the command of Damedran Randart oversaw the younger
students. In good weather, watched by the critical eyes of the adult captains,
they were fast, quiet, and bored. The storm freed them from constraint, and
though everyone knew what to do, setting up tents in that splashing downpour
was an adventure. As the adults were safely busy, there were surreptitious mud
fights (the evidence, they knew, would soon rinse off) and some running around.
It was fun and also a relief, so strict had been discipline in the
temper-exasperating heat of the past three days.

Ban found his arm gripped as he struggled with his team to
get the picket line set up. He whipped around, violently flinging off the hand.
But he saw Damedran’s face reflected in the ruddy glow of a torch.

Damedran jerked his chin over his shoulder. Ban followed.
Not to the command tent, which was a misshapen giant mushroom full of
snickering, cursing bumps and lumps as the setup crew tried to raise it from
inside. Damedran led him to a clump of hardy trees a ways away. They stopped
under the foliage, rain rattling the tossing leaves overhead.

“What,” Ban shouted.

Damedran put his mouth near Ban’s ear. “I think the sheep
knows about the invasion.”

“What?” Same word, but entirely different intonation.

“I’ve been thinking. What he said. On that yacht. Not
outright. Mostly about what we ought to be doing in training next spring. You
know. The hide-and-attack games.”

“You told us that. I already told you it’s a great idea.
Bowsprit, even your cousin thinks so. Everybody does. Except your uncle. Won’t
let us change the training. So what can
we
do about it?”

“Not that.” Damedran shook his head again. “Right before we
got off the yacht, the sheep said something about those outsiders who pinched
the prizes at the games and scragged my cousin Wolfie and Red. One said
something about Norsunder going to war soon.”

Warning tightened Ban’s shoulders. The wind shifted,
bringing a whiff of hot olive oil from the direction of the cook tent, then the
cold wind snapped it away. “And?”

“Told Father, who told Uncle Dannath. Before we left. But he
just laughed.”

Ban shoved his fingers into his armpits. The storm had
caught them too fast for them to fetch their gloves from the baggage train. “If
the warning came from Prince Jehan, of course your uncle and your father won’t
listen.”

“But I didn’t tell that part. I told Father I’d heard it.
Gossip. That’s one reason why I waited all week. Father reported it to my
uncle, then told me Uncle Dannath says I’ll hear that all my life from cowards.
Slackers. Fools.”

Ban shook his head, thinking,
Why am I hearing this instead of Red or even Wolfie?
“Who were
those fellows? I mean, how could a nine-year-old have the strength to dust four
of us?”

Damedran shook his head. “I asked Wolfie that first thing. I
thought the brat snuck up and brained them from behind one by one. Wolfie said
they all four tried to take him on, teach him a lesson. Said it wasn’t
strength, it was that he always seemed to know what they were going to do
before they did it, and then he knew exactly where to hit that hurt the most.
Wolfie said he could have killed them all if he’d wanted to. The brat didn’t
even break a sweat. What kind of training teaches an undersized brat to do
that?”

Ban shook his head. “I dunno. So why were they even here?”

“And why did they single out the sheep to give their warning
to?”

“I think the sheep isn’t a sheep at all,” Ban said, voicing
an inner conviction he’d never thought he’d share.

But Damedran did not scoff. They fell silent, neither quite
looking at the other.

Damedran said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Nothing.”

Damedran frowned at Ban, meeting his gaze at last.

Ban relented. Damedran had been different since that day. He
could be setting Ban up, but his instinct was against it. “There’s nothing we
can do. We’re under orders, at the very bottom of the chain of command.”

Damedran scowled. Ban was right. What was the good of being
senior in rank above all the cadets if the only orders you could give were how
many paces apart the tents had to be pitched?

“The real captains don’t listen to us,” Ban went on. “Your
father listens only to your uncle. The king, too. They have their plans. We
aren’t going to change those.” When Damedran ducked his head and grimaced in
agreement, he added, “I think it’s better to wait. Keep our ears open. Because
one of these days we’ll find someone who does listen.”
Like King Math, if he ever returns
.

Damedran frowned at the runnel of muddy water flowing over
his boots, carrying twigs and yellow-edged leaves. The storm was lifting enough
to permit some light.

Light. They’d be seen.

Damedran said, “All right. Then we’ll wait.”

They ran off to resume their duties.

o0o

At the same time, not far to the southwest, the proximity
of the western mountains caused the air to roil and boil, sending lightning and
thunder smashing across the sky.

Under cover of it, Devli Eban and his cousin Nad sped from
the mage house where they were staying, circling around and climbing up onto
the roof.

There they huddled under the eave of the servants’ dormer
window, which was shut tight and shuttered.

Ever since Devli had arrived back, they’d longed for a
chance to speak to one another, but hadn’t dared—not after Nad read the note
Devli had slipped into his hand that night:

We have two spies
among us, one for the prince and the other for the king
.

Now they looked at one another, and as soon as the thunder
overhead died away, Devli said, “What is the gossip about me?”

“They told us you got captured along with Prince Math’s
daughter by the pirate Zathdar, but you escaped. Had to make your way
cross-country on foot, as they’d taken your transfer tokens, and you were
afraid you were warded by the king’s mages so you couldn’t use the regular
Transfer Destination. How much of that is true?”

Devli looked into his cousin’s round face, blotched by cold.
At least the worst of the rain was hitting the other side of the building.
“Only that I was with them. We were on the pirate ship. When I was let go, I
transferred outside of town. I lied to cover how long I was gone, because the
king’s got at least one spy with us.”

Nad pursed his lips in a soundless whistle, knowing how very
dangerous it was to transfer anywhere you either hadn’t a Destination made safe
for transferring, or had laid a token down somewhere in preparation.

“And the prince has a spy with us,” Nad prompted. “That’s
what your note said.”

“Here’s what I didn’t tell anyone.” Devli leaned close. “The
pirate Zathdar is none other than Prince Jehan.”

Nad’s jaw dropped.

“I swore on my honor not to tell, and they let me go. They
didn’t have to, but he believed me. But I’ve always told you everything,
because we’ve been like brothers. I won’t tell anyone else, and I haven’t. So
you have to promise, too. And keep it.”

“I swear.”

Devli let out a shaky sigh. “He’s on our side. I’m convinced
he’s telling the truth, though he’s living a lie. He wouldn’t tell me
everything.”

Nad gave a single nod. If the prince had suddenly and
readily supplied answers to all Devli’s questions, that would have been
suspicious. “What convinced you?”

“He wants Prince Math back, and before spring.”

“So he believes the invasion rumor is true?”

“Yes.”

“And so he’ll turn against his father?”

“Said he wants to avoid that. Wants Prince Math back, who is
the only one who can stop the invasion, and find some solution with King
Canardan.”

“If.” Nad winced. “If. Two big ifs. What are we supposed to
do?”

“Find out who is spying, and what they are reporting. Learn
what we can of Magister Zhavic and Magister Perran’s orders from the king,
though I know Magister Wesec is trying to do that.”

Neither had to express what they thought of adult efforts to
do anything. They liked Magister Wesec. She was an excellent teacher and a fine
mage, but it seemed odd that she couldn’t keep out spies, or break the king’s
mages’ wards. But then neither could the king’s mages break her wards, and
everyone knew they tried.

Adults were just incompetent sometimes.

“And stand ready to aid in the search for Prince Math.”

Nad thought rapidly as rain poured between the warped
shingles and down the back of his neck. He still wasn’t convinced about the
royal heir. But these two orders, they did not require any action from him that
was morally reprehensible. Everyone in the resistance wanted to know what
Zhavic and Perran were doing on the king’s behalf. Everybody dreaded hearing
that the king’s mages were no longer claiming to be neutral, but had allied
with the war commander.

Devli said, “Prince Jehan said we ought to find that
acceptable to conscience and vows.”

Well, if that was true, it argued for a good prince, didn’t
it?

Nad still wasn’t sure. But he could think it all through
later. “What about Prince Math’s daughter?”

“Zath—the pr—he took her away. I don’t think she wanted to
stay with him. My sister certainly didn’t. And there’s the other trouble. My
sister.”

Nad blinked rain from his eyelashes. “Elva knows?”

“She discovered the ruse on her own. But she wouldn’t
believe him and went back to sea.”

Nad winced, thinking of his stubborn cousin. “Won’t help the
prince if she’s blabbing his secret all over. Trouble indeed. Royal trouble.”

“She won’t,” Devli said. “Promised. What worries me is that
she hired out onto a ship that got commandeered into Randart’s fleet. Which is
right now chasing the pirate ships. Zathdar’s pirate ships.”

“Zathdar who is really Prince Jehan.”

“Right.”

A silvery bell chimed inside, calling the mage students to
study. In silence the two young men climbed down, separated and returned to the
house via different doors.

o0o

And in Vadnais, thunder rolled across the sky, cursed by
the musicians, flower arrangers, cooks, and servers who had been hired by the
ambassador of Colend for the river-barge party she had planned as a return
gesture for the lovely masquerade ball.

Overlooking the bend in the river where the barges
rocked—the blossoms from their ruined garlands strewn over the quay in
multicolored profusion—was the old audience hall, opened up today because of
the mass of petitioners who had arrived on orders of the Guild Council. Safety
in numbers was the whispered word, and so they stood all round the walls in a
room still slumberous with yesterday’s heat as the storm flashed and rumbled,
making it impossible to hear the king and the Chief of the Guild Council.

Canardan, oppressed by the heat, the smells of too many
close-packed bodies in the still room, and above all by the fact that he could
not get around the fool treaty, wished Randart were here to clear them all out
at the point of a sword. He wished even more fervently that his son and heir
would not slouch over there watching the rain beat against the windows, his
profile so obviously bored.

“Yes,” Canardan said heavily, before yet another guild
master or mistress could belly forward and launch into a bad reading of four or
five close-written pages, borrowing the most tedious phrases from old history
books. “I see your point. And I promise there will be a hearing, attended by
guild representatives as well as those of government, mage and military.”

The Chief of the Guild Council bowed. The guild masters and
mistresses bowed. Canardan nodded, bending forward to lay his seal on the hot
wax of the proclamation the scribe had written.

He noticed, distracted, that Jehan had slipped out, and
shook his head. If only the boy had a head for governing.

The room began to empty. Suddenly stifled beyond bearing,
Canardan rose, unlatched one of the long mullioned windows and let the wind
blow in to cool his face, not hearing the muffled exclamations and curses of
his scribes who dashed about trying to catch the flurry of papers that had
taken to the air.

Lightning flickered and thunder rumbled like an avalanche
of mountain-sized boulders across the sky as Prince Jehan ran up the
backstairs, pausing long enough to note where everyone was.

Chas, as he’d hoped, had marshaled all the royal servants to
straighten the king’s rooms which, because the king had commanded all his
windows to be opened that morning, were a welter of puddles, papers, and
anything else that was not too heavy for the wind to smite spinning into chaos.

Jehan paused at his own rooms long enough to motion for
Kazdi, bent on the same task, to follow. The boy left the other servants
working, shutting the door to the outer parlor on his heels.

“Guard the stairs,” Jehan murmured.

Kazdi frowned. “Decoy?”

“Do it. Use the rock collection.”

The boy zipped inside the room, emerging with a silver bowl
of exquisite crystal stones, which he scattered all over the landing, resting
the bowl inside the door. Then he took up a stance from which he could see in
all directions while Jehan raced up the marble stairs four at a time and down
the hall to the tower where Atanial had been isolated. He stopped at the
landing of her own stairway, where he suspected the spy-wards bordered—the
larger the wards, the harder they were to maintain. He whistled the calls of
night birds until apparently she recognized one of them as an anomaly and came
herself to investigate.