Treason's Shore (65 page)

Convocation came and went in an orderly manner. Again Horsebutt Tya-Vayir conducted himself with uncharacteristic cooperation. Evred still did not trust that. Once or twice he caught himself wondering if Horsebutt had somehow got hold of magical cases. If one person could get them, why not another?
There is no sign of conspiracy. I will not invent one.

I am not insane
.

As the new year’s winter days at last gave way to a late spring the first sign of the passes opening was a mud and travel-stained courier from the east bringing two letters. By chance Han Tlen had drawn office duty again, but this year she was in charge of a thirteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old; Goatkick had been promoted and was at that moment laboring through a late snowdrift with messages to Parayid Harbor.

Han had grown into a weedy, gangling colt of a girl with a quick grin. Inda, Tdor, and the royal couple had all noticed how sometime during the past year she’d gone from isolation to becoming the mascot of the King’s Runners-in-Training.

“Shall I take it?” Han asked the messenger.

“I’m to put it in your king’s hands,” the messenger said.

“It won’t be long,” Han said in her careful Sartoran. “Then you’ll get something hot to drink.”

When Evred’s door opened, Han stood by so that the messenger could hand the king his packet, as he’d promised. That done, Han sent the twelve-year-old to take the messenger downstairs for refreshments.

Evred shut his door again. He sent the duty Runner on an errand, ensuring he was alone. His heart hammered, but he would not postpone whatever lay therein.

From Wisthia to Evred:

Sarmord? Kingmaker
, Evred translated. Adamas of the Black Sword had also been called “Adamas Dei Sarmord.”

Taumad Dei
. Once Evred had likened the tightly intertwined pain and pleasure of Inda’s straight-on gaze to gazing into the sun. Tau’s sudden laugh, his touch, affected Evred the same way; the discovery that Tau was a direct descendant of Adamas Dei was like discovering that the sun had fallen out of the sky and burned directly outside the door.

Evred opened Tau’s letter which, like Wisthia’s, was written with Sartoran lettering, but unlike hers was in the Marlovan language.

Estral? The only person Evred knew with that name was the Idayagan assassin who’d posed as a poet. Friend?

Evred frowned, and reread the letter. Was Taumad drunk when he wrote that?

Of course he would not go to the expense of sending a drunken scrawl on a six-month journey—and this was no scrawl.
Pickled?

Pickles.
The vinegar-stinking Venn—

He read the words more slowly. Estral Mardric, pickles—then he flushed at the obviousness of what he had missed. When he was ten years old, his father had encouraged his studies in Sartoran by telling him,
The easiest diplomatic code begins with a personal synecdoche, and once you know its context, you can determine the real meaning of seemingly innocent messages
.

So, if the pickled cucumbers were the Venn, and highest price was either betrayal or death, what did bringing in the Zhaer Ban brothers mean? They were the biggest saddlers in the royal city, their main building on the river a stone’s throw from the castle. Were they traitors?

No, of course not. Evred had known the old man all his life; the oldest son had volunteered as a Rider during Tlennen-Harvaldar’s first call for war. What was wrong with them? Or was he thinking about it all wrong? House on the river—on the water—northeast corner of the river, just inside the eastern wall . . .

Water. If you looked at the map and substituted the river for, say, the strait, then the brothers’ saddlery was located approximately in the same place as Ymar. Or the Port of Jaro.

Evred set the letter down. Why was the Port of Jaro important? Yes. The winter before last, Barend had sent him a note after delivering the gold to Queen Wisthia. He’d added a single line that the Fox Banner Fleet was sailing with a newly-formed alliance to turf the Venn out of Jaro. Evred had not heard directly from Barend since. He knew his cousin was safe, as Barend had sent a verbal message by some traders to Cama last year, with two items of news: his locket was lost, but they’d won their sea battle.

All right, then let the saddlery stand for Ymar.

Evred turned back to the letter.

If “dish-makers” was a crude swipe at the platter-faced Chwahir, then Evred understood it well enough: every government along the strait wanted it patrolled but didn’t trust the others and didn’t want to pay for the force necessary for patrol. Meanwhile, rumors had it the Venn were going to return.

He walked to his open window, stared down at the academy. Clashes, clangs, and boys’ voices echoed from the distant practice yards. He thought he caught Inda’s laugh among those braying teenage honks. That sharp bark was Honeyboy Tya-Vayir. Inda had said, “I’m going to make Honeyboy captain on a game. He’ll never be Cama, but he’s not Horsebutt, either. Let him have his chance.”

Evred rejoiced at Inda’s every success, but each reflection brought him hard against the fact that everyone, men and boys, was loyal to Inda. He did not resent it. He couldn’t. Call it wariness, left over from boyhood. The familiar wariness lay inside Evred like a curled fist; what Evred resented was his own readiness for that fist to tighten to rage. He made himself breathe slowly until it loosened while he contemplated how Inda had never in his life tried to command loyalty. People just turned to him to lead them. And all his own loyalty was given to Evred. There was no king in the world who had a better shield arm.

Insane,
Taumad had said once. Evred counted breaths again. He was
not
insane. He could not let himself become insane; he did not have that comfort.

Six days later Evred received a locket note from the Runner who had replaced Nightingale Toraca at the Nob. The first bit of news was the report from fishers sighting the massing of Venn warships at Nathur, the southernmost Venn base on Drael.

The second piece of news:
A woman we believe is Signi the Venn landed at the Nob from a trade ship. She set out alone down the south road.

Over the following days, as Signi jolted and swayed in a coffee wagon along the narrow Olaran coastal road leading to Lindeth Harbor, Evred considered his response. His first reaction had been anger: the massing of the Venn above Halia and her reappearance could not be coincidence.

But that did not mean she returned as a spy. He owed Signi the Venn the opportunity to explain herself. So he sent Kened to meet her with a mount. If she was not going to transfer by magic, but intended to travel overland to the royal city for some reason, at least she would not have to walk all the way south.

Half a year passed. Iasca Leror was too busy with everyday pursuits to notice until once again the long autumn twilight layered over the sky in bands of color. Harvest time was here. It was Restday when Dauvid Tya-Vayir reached home after his long journey from the academy.

Uncle Stalgrid seemed shorter, somehow, his jowls more fleshy, his brow more pinched as he shouted orders at the men laying the new roof on the stable. On their approach he turned sharply, his face tightening into suspicion.

All along the journey Dauvid had envisioned telling his uncle how he’d commanded two cub overnights, but the words dried up at the sight of that suspicion. No welcome, just suspicion. It was as if the world split somehow, and Honeyboy fell out of one world, becoming Dauvid in his uncle’s smaller world, where everything that happened was somebody’s fault if Uncle Stalgrid hadn’t ordered it. Where everyone was a claphair or a coward or a slacker or a spy.

And so when his uncle said, “Well? Don’t just stand there. We have work to do. Give me your report. What did they do to you this year?” Dauvid said, “Nothing.”

“As well.” Stalgrid Tya-Vayir snorted. “Lick their boots, get through the seven years. Then they’ll leave us alone, until I’m forced to send the boy.” And when Dauvid did not answer, Stalgrid motioned impatiently. “Get up there. Next time it will be your task to reset the roof, until such time as that idiot Montrei-Vayir in the royal city is willing to pay out for a mage as he promised.”

It was not until much later that Dauvid trod wearily into the castle. Everyone worked on Restday in Tya-Vayir if Uncle Stalgrid was in one of his moods.

Aunt Hibern, Aunt Imand’s mate, was waiting for Dauvid. She greeted him kindly, asked if he was hungry, then brought him to his aunt. She was down at the summer bake house on the hill above the lakeshore. They’d rebuilt it that summer, Dauvid saw. She gave him a quick smile, and a searching gaze as she said, “We’re still trying to learn its ways.”