Treason's Shore (90 page)

Chapter Nineteen

A
T first, Halvir Durasnir found Llyenthur Harbor interesting. But that did not last long.

He would have loved to run up and down those zigzag steps below the palace on the hilltop, especially in the warm air. They almost never had warm air at home in Twelve Towers, and definitely no zigzag flights of stairs. Through the window he’d seen boys his age, some of them going to the fishers, or to the harbor shops where they prenticed, and some helping the workers busy on the expansion, but at first he was forbidden to go near the scaffolding, and then he could not go outside at all.

Instead, he had to sit in the king’s outer chamber, being absolutely quiet so that he would not disturb the king at meditation. And all he was permitted to do was practice his runes until he felt like his head was stuffed with armor quilting. Like he was six, not ten!

So after too many boring days, all exactly alike, when the Dag came in and told him to follow the king to the royal ship, Halvir leaped up. At last he’d get to do something! He’d be sailing with the Oneli! And best of all, he’d get to see his father, who he knew commanded the Oneli flagship.

One by one his hopes were smashed. The Erama Krona closed in like moving white pillars, with the harbor duty Drenga as outer perimeter, so Halvir only saw armed men, between whom were mere glimpses of people, of dock, of water. The Erama Krona carried the king in a throne-like conveyance, but he did not talk to anyone. He did not even look around.

Then—
finally
—the ship they got onto was just a converted raider, no cut booms or anything. Not the
Cormorant
. There was a sail crew, but no Drenga, only Erama Krona, silent as always, plus a lot of sober-faced dags in blue. Halvir felt the fuzzy tingle of magic as he and the king were led straight below to a big cabin in the middle deck and Halvir got pushed beyond that into a tiny oddly-shaped cabin that he figured had to be in the forepeak. Halvir didn’t even get to stay with the king, not that the king had ever spoken to him once past that first “Welcome, Halvir.” And he’d said that as if he were asleep.

Halvir’s new quarters were clean, with two small scuttles, a narrow bunk, and on the opposite side a tiny desk below a glowglobe. Several scrolls sat on the desk, and paper, and ink, and pens.

Lessons. Halvir groaned. He so wanted to climb the rigging, and talk to people, and
see
something. Where were the other boys he was supposed to be learning with? He’d even be glad to see that sniveling Fald Hadna.

He was shut in and told to sleep or read a scroll. The ship rocked and rocked, and then he felt the jerk and lift and roll that meant they were under way. He waited, stomach growling. He knew better than to complain. It was a little frightening, being under the watchful eyes of those silent Erama Krona, who (everyone knew) would kill you if you as much as talked to the king without his asking you a question first.

It was dark when he woke and peeked through the scuttle just overhead. He felt cranky and stiff as he climbed off the bunk and straightened out his clothes. Then the door opened, an ensign brought in some warm spice-milk and food, which made Halvir feel better.

But then Dag Erkric himself summoned him. “Now, Halvir,” he said. “Tell me, who do you think are the smartest boys your age?”

What did adults mean by smart? The ones the adults told you to act like, or ones you liked to play with? Ones who thought up the best games? Andr Loc was funny, but he was always in trouble. Maybe better not mention him.

“Fald Hadna?” Halvir asked. Adults always held him up as the example of a good boy, though he was a sneak and a serpent-tongue.

“You think carefully before you speak,” Dag Erkric observed, his gaze steady.

Halvir looked down, fighting against the fidgets. He couldn’t define why he felt uneasy, he just wished he could get away.

So how was he to answer? The Dag smiled. “That is a very good trait.”

All right, so far at least there weren’t trouble questions, like, “Why are you so undisciplined?” There was no right answer to
that
question.

Dag Erkric said, “Get your pens and ink and paper, Halvir. You are to sit at this desk while I work at protecting the king and the ship by magic. You must sit very still and not disturb me, for this is difficult magic I must cast. You are to write out all your runes, taking especial care with them.”

Halvir bit off a protest that he knew his runes. He obeyed, but as he sat down to the tedious task, he wished he had another boy to talk to.

Instead, here he was, with the king somewhere, and all those silent Erama Krona. He was so very glad he was an heir, so he would never be asked to join
them
. The grown-ups all said it was a great honor if a second son or a cousin of an heir was invited to the Erama Krona, but who would want to be taken away from his family for years and go through the terrible training he heard about? The big boys once told Halvir and his friends that the Erama Krona candidates had their balls cut off, but his mother had said that was only in the olden days and they hadn’t done that for centuries. But still. You couldn’t be in a family until your twenty years of service were over and you were fifty. Who wanted to
live
at fifty? Well . . . Mother would be fifty next year, and she was alive . . . and maybe . . .

As Dag Erkric’s voice droned softly in the background, whispering spells over and over, Halvir blinked at his rune, and tried to remember where his mind had been wandering. Odd how sometimes it got really hard to think.

In the palace courtyard, Dag Anchan straightened up wearily. She fought the impulse to tug that disgusting iron torc around her neck. She knew it would not choke her. Iron did not change size. It was the idea of it, the heaviness of it, that made her feel choked.

She stretched her back and regarded the lines of sheets adjacent the racks of shirts, drawers, and socks, all spread out in readiness for the rising sun. Down here in the south, laundry could usually be sun dried at least once a week during most of the year. Even in winter, she was assured by a local woman, there were plenty of sunny days this close to the middle of the world.

At home the laundry was above the baking rooms, which kept the air warm and dry. Mages kept the glowglobes intense, which required almost as much work as the cleaning and cranking through the wringer.

Anchan was
finished
. Not just for the day, but for good. She looked around at the people who’d been her companions, some for three years, others since her arrival in Llyenthur. Most were justice thralls, their crimes petty, except for the Laundry Chief, who was a born thrall. All but one were young. The older woman’s thieving made no sense. Anchan suspected from her odd comments that the woman saw the world through a broken window and needed a healer good with troubled minds. It would not happen, not with Erkric sending the best healers on the warships.

The court was warm. The new sun radiated off the stones, burning her bare toes a little. She walked head-bent toward the thrall gate. As always, the few people she passed avoided looking at her, as if thralldom would defile them if their gazes touched. Could she blame them? No. She’d expected to find no lover during her rare free moments—she’d grown up hearing people say in a disparaging tone,
She’d have sex with thralls,
or
He couldn’t get anyone but a thrall in his bed
. Long, long ago thralls could not say no. Now, people despised you if you slept with thralls. She had discovered that she couldn’t bear the thought of intimacy with any of these people by whom she sat at meals, whose breathing she heard from their sleeping alcoves when she was off duty.

Now she could leave. It would even be easy. No one noticed thralls unless they did an unthralllike thing. The small traces of her magic would vanish before Erkric or any of his minions could be bothered to examine the space. Everyone would assume her time was done. So she rolled the sleep-mat, stashed it neatly under the narrow sleeping platform. She folded the ugly, rough brown thrall tunic and placed it on the barren shelf for the next poor soul assigned to this minuscule alcove. She put on her blue dag robe, wriggling all over just to feel the fine linsey-woolsey again. Then she pulled her transfer token from where she had wedged it between the join of the sleep platform and the wall.

Light, air, and space ripped apart the world and reassembled it; she staggered as noise buffeted her. The glare of sunlight dazzled her eyes. Two small, firm hands gripped her just above the elbows to steady her.

“Come. Sit,” Valda said, looking older and thinner, her wild hair more white than gray. “Why are you here? Disaster? One word will do.”

“No.” Shuffle, shuffle, something hard bumped the backs of Anchan’s knees, and she sat gratefully, then opened her eyes. “The fleet left. No laundry thralls taken aboard the mage ship.”

“Mage ship? Dag Erkric is not on the
Cormorant?
”

“It is still at Bren, last I heard. Yesterday Erkric took his prisoners and his chosen Erama Krona to the raider
Cliffdiver
.”

“Prisoners? King Rajnir and—”

“And Oneli Stalna Durasnir’s son Halvir.”

Valda gasped. “So that’s why the scribes and archivists . . . I did not know.”

“No one knew. But what’s this about the scribes? Is my mother involved?”

“Oh, yes. Your father has learned how to remove the Norsunder wards from the king’s chambers. As for the scribes—oh, we can talk about it later. Now I know why they are angered—it must be on Brun Durasnir’s behalf. Tell me more!”

“The Dag brought Halvir back from Twelve Towers when he returned. I did not risk a message because he came back in an ice-storm temper, increasing wards everywhere as soon as he recovered from the transfer. We learned he intends to gather a coterie of dedicated young men to serve the king.”

“All bespelled,” Valda whispered. “This is terrible.”

“He began the bindings on the boy as soon as he laid his wards. I discovered it after three days had passed, and in my horror, that very night I spindled them. I could not bear a child being . . .” Anchan bowed her head. “I believe I acted in error for that next day, Dag Erkric announced the king’s decision to join the fleet, and they were closed off from contact while everything was readied. Now he’s got both of them on that ship, out of our reach.”

“This is terrible, terrible.” Brit Valda perched on the bench like an untidy bird, rubbing her gnarled hands absently over her bony knees.

“Where am I?” Anchan asked, looking down at her scrub-worn hands, which right now looked older than Valda’s.

“You are in the north of Sartor.”

“Are these mages?” Anchan asked, looking about as she fingered the torc still around her neck. “Can you remove this thing?” Then she remembered the whispers about Valda’s birth and her face heated.

“They would think it merely an ornament, here,” Valda assured her with a crooked smile, then reached up behind Anchan and murmured the unlock spell. The torc fell into Anchan’s lap. “They don’t have thralls, either born or criminal. Judgments are handled other ways.”

So Anchan pocketed the torc and took in her surroundings. She was in a square of what appeared to be a village or town, leafy trees at each corner dappling the bricks with shade. The houses displayed the broad windows she’d discovered were typical of the south. Most houses were built to one or two levels. The extravagance of wide windows was enhanced further with flower-potted balconies; from some of the open windows came the rhythmic drone of the spell for Fire Stick renewal. The summer sun shone warm as well as bright, so far in the south, and the air quite hot. Anchan took in the rich, unfamiliar scents and smiled. She was free again, wearing the blue she’d earned. She’d even come to like short hair, light and free of trouble in this warm climate.

Valda said briskly, “Are you recovered? Your transfer magic is safely disseminated. We can sit a few moments longer, then get you a good meal. We’ll put in some work as trade, but first, finish your report. Did Erkric say where he planned to take the king?”

“Once the Oneli win the strait he will transfer to Jaro for the winter.”

Valda touched her fingertips together. “I honor you for three years of heroic work. But you are not finished with danger. Here is my report for you. Nelsaiam fell to us, but at a sharp cost. Seigmad collapsed in a calenture near the end of the battle, and there was some struggle over who would take command. Battlegroup Captain Hyarl Dyalf Balandir wished to reassert himself as Battlegroup Chief, but his Battlegroup was at the edge of events, and I’m told he had no idea what to do besides waving his fist and shouting to attack. Captain Baltar of the
Katawake
assumed the command until Battlegroup Chief Seigmad woke.”

“Good.”

“But while that was occurring, Dag Yatar commenced using magic against the enemy. He said at the king’s own command. And they claim the spells turned the tide of battle.”