The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3) (22 page)

***

“Of course you’ll join in,” Basaal said, leaning against the open doorframe of Zanntal’s room in the travelers’ house.

Zanntal sat on his bed, back against the wall, polishing his scimitar. “I make a far superior nursemaid than a dancer.” Zanntal paused and looked up at his prince. “And I am no nursemaid.”

Grinning, Basaal ran his fingers through his hair. It was getting long; it needed cutting. “There are many simple dances, and even standing by, drink in hand, watching the merriment, is an evening well spent before a man rides to war.”

Zanntal did not look convinced. “I’ll dance with no one. As surely as no one would dance with me.”

“I’m sure Eleanor will. She’d slight me for you, as clear as day. And what about Edythe?” Basaal asked with a half shrug. “You could ask her for a dance.”

A disbelieving smile broke across Zanntal’s face. “Edythe would no sooner dance with me than with the emperor. She humors me for the sake of her sister.”

A movement in the hall caught Basaal’s attention, and he looked to see Crispin just leaving his room.

“Crispin! Come help me convince Zanntal to dance.”

“What? You’re trying to get him to dance with you now?”

“Of course not.” Basaal rolled his eyes. “Just come here.”

The war leader did not come with quite the boyish enjoyment Basaal had been used to seeing from the days of the battle run, but he did come, stepping past Basaal into the room.

“Zanntal,” Crispin said as he nodded.

Zanntal nodded in return.

“You might as well come,” Crispin said as he put both hands on his hips. “Your battle dread will ease. We’ll all end up smiling, girls will abound, and hopefully, for my sake, the drinks will flow. Come,” he said, kicking lightly at Zanntal’s shoe. “Don’t waste your last chance at a dance, and don’t throw away a night with an easy mind.”

Basaal translated all Crispin had said.

When Zanntal made no verbal response, Crispin shrugged and clasped Basaal on the shoulder as he prepared to leave. Basaal was startled by the show of camaraderie, and it must have shown on his face, for Crispin actually broke into a grin.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Crispin said. “You’ve thrown your lot in with ours. And, I don’t think many of us are getting out of this war alive, so I might as well forgive you for being such an ass.”

Basaal’s head went back, and he laughed. He brought his hand up to Crispin’s arm, gripping it with a sense of brotherhood. “I wouldn’t know how to navigate the terror of an Aemogen dance without you.”

“No fear of that,” Crispin said. “I’ll help you through.” Crispin turned back to Zanntal. “Don’t go all grandfather on us now—get a move on it.”

Crispin winked at Basaal and slid past the prince. Basaal looked over his shoulder just as Crispin paused and half turned to face him. “You know, I might as well say this before I get into the evening and forget I’ve ever owned the thought. I am almost wishing now I would have settled before this, perhaps even married. I don’t know.” Crispin shrugged. “I always supposed I had all the time in the world.” The young war leader knocked his fist against the wall gently, pulled by a thought beyond what he had shared. “Well, I’ll see you at the square.”

Basaal reached absentmindedly for the hilt of his sword as he watched Crispin disappear down the hallway of the travelers’ house.

***

The violin was eager. The violin was hungry. As Basaal descended the Ainsley stair with Eleanor’s hand in his, he could hear the strains of the music already swirling around the feet of the dancers. Edythe, Aedon, and others of the royal company surrounded him and Eleanor, talking anxiously, finding it impossible to fight the music’s energy that was anything but what they had experienced during the last month.

It was not as grand as the spring festival had been the year prior—there were no games or booths—but the people were gathered around the dance floor, and they were intent on each other’s company. They weighed one another’s words with more earnestness. They laughed, and the laughter was really a way to say good-bye. They would dance tonight, and then they would leave for war. And every pair of sweethearts refused to part for even a moment.

Eleanor’s company settled on a temporary dais, where chairs had been set, and the musicians stopped their playing as Eleanor welcomed them all.

“We do not know the outcome of what is ahead,” Eleanor said after a brief welcome, pausing as she brushed the wooden arm of her chair with the tips of her fingers in uncertainty. Basaal, sitting at her side, reached his hand up and took her fingers in his. “But, we stand together and for Aemogen. May the blessing of all those who have gone before us work in our favor. And, may we return to our homes in peace come the end.”

The crowd roared, and the musicians took up a lively tune that transformed the entire square into the dance. As Eleanor sat, Basaal took her hand in both of his and leaned towards her. “Well done. Shall we dance?”

“I don’t think I can.” Eleanor felt weighed down into her chair. “I’ve spent all afternoon thinking about the next several days and I—”

“All the more reason,” Basaal interrupted. “Come on.” Basaal stood and grabbed both of her hands, ignoring her protests as he led her to the center of the floor. Couples parted to make way, and Eleanor stopped her protests to smile and put on a face. When Basaal spun her around to face him, her expression was a careful mix of gratitude and peevishness. Basaal laughed. “You might have to take the lead if I fail,” he shouted over the noise.

They danced. Several melodies were familiar to Basaal, and what was not Eleanor helped him through. After an hour of music and dancing, the torchlight filling the entire square, Basaal brought his face close to Eleanor’s with a question: “Where’s Edythe?”

“I don’t know.” Eleanor said, turning in concern to scan the chairs, but could not see her sister there.

“Is she dancing?” Basaal asked.

“I haven’t seen her on the floor,” Eleanor said. “But I had assumed she would not join in.”

Crispin had pushed through the press of the crowd to join them and asked Eleanor for a dance.

She nodded, and then looked toward Basaal.

“I’ll go and see if I can find Edythe,” Basaal said. “I’ve a hunch of where she will be.” He did not waste time by searching the dance floor. He knew she would not be there. Taking the Ainsley stairs two at a time, he hurried up past the gates and into the quiet of the rise.

With the music floating around the dark, Basaal walked to the records hall, knocked on the door, and pushed in. He had been right. There she was, sitting at a table with a small candle lit, shuffling through an assortment of papers and a pile of damaged scrolls.

“You left without dancing.” His words echoed in the quiet hall.

Edythe smiled and looked back towards her work as Basaal approached her table, sitting in the chair across from her. Misery was evident on Edythe’s usually composed face, and she held herself together by focusing on the task before her. The papers rustled and slid as she sorted, her only answer to his statement.

Basaal waited just outside the circle of candlelight, trying to read whatever he could from her movements.

“Just too many memories?” Basaal ventured.

“No,” Edythe said, her eyebrows knit in a way that reminded Basaal of Eleanor. “The memories are there, for certain, but—”

“But?”

She set the paper in her hand on the table with the others and rested her hands on them as if they might fly away. “It’s been almost a year now.”

Basaal shifted in the chair, leaning against one arm, his fingers spread against his cheek.

“The fear of forgetting his likeness,” Edythe said, “of reshaping his voice in my head, is so frightening.”

“So, you worry about betraying his memory?”

“Yes,” Edythe said emphatically.

Basaal opened his mouth and then grimaced before speaking. “Has Eleanor ever told you of how my brother died?”

Edythe shook her head.

So Basaal spoke of Emaad—comprehensively and without holding back a single breeze of memory—so that the story was formed into an intricate design of what Emaad had meant to Basaal and of how, in the end, Emaad had died for him.

“I took his body away from that place,” Basaal explained, “to a quiet copse of trees that had escaped our army’s brutality. There was a stream there, a freshet of sorts, where I washed and prepared his body. I cried myself through all the appropriate rites, trying to remember what was to be set in place for the journey of the dead. And, when I’d filled the grave, I—” Basaal shrugged and leaned against the back of the chair, folding both his arms across his chest. “I felt as if I were buried along with him.”

Shaking her head repeatedly, Edythe lifted her hand to her mouth.

“After not much time, numbness sets in, and you are thankful, for it separates you from the pain,” Basaal said philosophically. “But, it also comes with fear, the fear of knowing that someday you will wake up and all your senses will no longer be stripped bare, the dullness of survival stolen, and you will feel the pain of it.”

The wick of the candle had burned down, tilting sideways into the clear wax that had begun to spill onto the table.

“What takes away the pain?” Edythe whispered.

Basaal frowned. “It doesn’t leave. But it changes, coming in waves rather than in relentless sharp misery. I suppose—” He caught an ironic laugh in his throat, and ended up just breathing out fast, his chest rising and falling. “I suppose it began to ease at some point during the battle run. It was Eleanor…it was all of you.”

“Do you forget to think of him?” she asked.

Basaal lifted his fingers to his lower lip. “Never supposing that this would happen, some days pass where I realize I have given him no thought. I used to think this should trouble me, make me feel guilty for it. But I don’t do it carelessly, Edythe, and Emaad would be pleased. No one is meant to love only one soul in their life. We have friends and lovers and whatever family the Illuminating God has given. That being said, any loss is irrevocable. No one steps into the place they once were. But the act of loving someone would not be so beautiful if their place could ever be filled. We need loss, I suppose. Perhaps there is something even holy in it.”

Sputtering in the wax, the flame of the candle disappeared, and the smell of smoke rose between them. The music from the square reminded Basaal of what he had come for in the first place. “Come down to the square and dance.”

***

Eleanor was standing with Aedon in the crowd when the musician’s announced the final song.

“Have you seen Basaal?” she asked him, looking around the crowded square.

“There,” Aedon said, pointing towards the base of the steps, where Basaal and Edythe had just finished a dance. As Eleanor looked over, she caught Basaal’s eye. He waved and took his leave of Edythe, weaving through the spent crowd to join Eleanor.

“I’ll go be with Edythe,” Aedon said as Basaal arrived. Then Basaal stepped into his place beside Eleanor, and the music began.

Slower than a reel, they turned in close proximity, facing one another, taking simple steps. Eleanor found herself craving the pressure of his hand on her waist, the way her hand brushed against his chest when the dance called for her to circle around him, the feeling of his breath against her cheek when he spoke. By the time the song ended, Eleanor and Basaal had stopped dancing altogether, standing close, her arms around his neck, his chin resting against her temple.

“I still don’t understand how to leave for battle,” she said.

“You try not to think about it,” he answered.

Eleanor’s party, her councillors and friends, all found each other before ascending the stairs to Ainsley Rise. Speaking occasionally, but mainly content in their own thoughts of the days ahead. Then they separated, embracing wishing each other a good night, and remembering they would gather again come morning.

Eleanor and Basaal returned to her rooms, sitting before the fire on one of the sofas, wandering in their own thoughts.

“We never danced to my music,” Basaal said as he leaned his head back and then smiled.

“That would have been a disaster.” Eleanor was sitting beside him, her feet tucked up beneath her. “They wouldn’t have forgiven you.”

Basaal laugh was slow. Eleanor shifted herself, the music wearing thin in her mind, the anxiety of battle rising.

“Relax.” Basaal moved his hand to her knee.

“Is that possible?” Eleanor looked at Basaal’s face. The skin there was healing from the burns, and his eye was just slightly clouded.

“No, it isn’t possible,” he answered.

“Then, how are you appearing so at ease?” she asked. Eleanor moved her fingers along the wood grain of the back of the sofa, stopping shy of touching Basaal.

He took a long breath. “Years of practice, I suppose.”

He sat up and shifted to face her. “If I am to be honest, I must admit to have never known the terror I’m covering now. The thought of raising my sword to my own men is—I cannot even think it or I—I will watch for my colors in battle and keep as far away as I can. It’s—” He did not finish, but Eleanor saw he was now shaking.