Siamis rode directly behind his main two lines, one making a shield wall and the other armed with cudgels. He looked so easy in the saddle with those graceful straight limbs unencumbered by any weapons. He could have commanded by mental communication. He’d forestalled complaints about advantages by using signal flags, same as Henerek—not that the latter signaled, with his captains gone.
Siamis turned his head, then spoke to one of his outriders. A whirl and dip of the flag, and chosen squads in the reinforcement line formed up into wedges. They muscled up behind their mates in the first two lines, who were still struggling to resist the chaotic charge.
The two lines stirred as squad captains shouted orders. Henerek’s chargers, clearly taking this movement for surrender, lost all form as they pressed together, all struggling to be first through the openings, presenting a solid target for the wedges.
Smash! They hit Henerek’s straggled line and shattered it and all semblance of order, as everyone began fighting. Those who surrendered fell to their knees.
Henerek stilled, head twisting back and forth, and then Siamis turned his head, beckoned, and pointed.
A familiar short, slim, black-haired figure, also instantly recognizable, launched through the melee like an arrow from a bow. Dejain’s heart jolted with fear when she recognized Kessler Sonscarna, the renegade Chwahir prince she’d once worked with on his mad plan to replace the world’s most powerful rulers with people of his own training. Dejain had never believed he would succeed, and had betrayed Kessler to save her own skin. As was expected in Norsunder. But Kessler was . . . mad.
He fought his way through Henerek’s big guards as if they were straw targets, hitting them with unnerving speed in nerve clusters that caused limbs to freeze in breath-hitching pain. Then he found Henerek.
Lesca was leaning forward, elbows on knees. “Look at him,” she said appreciatively. “He’s smart, he’s fast, and he’s brutal. I think he’s broken Henerek’s arm! This will make him a captain at last, one would think. Why isn’t he a captain?”
“Because he’s insane,” Dejain said.
“But that’s so often an attribute.” Lesca uttered a deep chuckle as, below on the field, Kessler threw away Henerek’s cudgel and attacked with his bare hands. “I heard that Efael himself sent him to bottle up that disgusting old crock in Chwahirsland, but he doesn’t seem to be grateful for the privilege, does he?”
“That’s because Kessler would have preferred to gut the old crock and watch him die at his feet,” Dejain said.
Below, Henerek circled around Kessler, who waited in stillness, only his head moving. Henerek’s left arm dangled, but he gripped a sword in his right.
At last Henerek struck. He lasted about four blows, then measured his length in the dust. “Do you think Henerek’s dead? No, he’s moving.” Lesca shook her head. “You worked with him once. What kind of lover does Kessler like?”
“Never saw him with anyone,” Dejain said. “I think Kessler’s too insane for anything normal like sex.”
“They say he never lies.”
Dejain understood. The more she warned Lesca away from Kessler, the more interest Lesca would take, especially since Henerek was on his way to the lazaretto, probably for some weeks’ stay. “He’s a Chwahir,” she said.
Lesca grimaced. “I forgot that. He doesn’t move like them, or act like them. They’re so . . . so furtive,” she finished in disgust. “No wonder I’ve never seen him at the recreation wing.”
Dejain didn’t bother explaining that she knew little about his life other than that Kessler had escaped Wan-Edhe at age ten, and thus half of his life had been spent away from Land of the Chwahir. The thinking half.
Lesca made a noise of disappointment. “See there! It looks like Siamis is reorganizing them into drill groups. Now he’ll work them until they can barely crawl after their commander back to their bunks.” She rose. “What a disappointment. I may as well see about the cornmeal shipments, as soon as I know you mages have fixed the transfer. At least we should be able to get non-living things through.”
Chapter Ten
Bath Rennet (Midsummer), 4737 AF
Bereth Ferian
IN Bereth Ferian’s Hall of Light, the music swelled to a glorious climax, four melodic lines braided by women’s voices, men’s voices, children’s, and the soloist as dancers leaped back and forth, their streamers rippling in the air, symbolizing the propagation of world-healing spells.
Every beautiful chord, every repetition of words such as ‘glory’ and ‘peace’ needled Liere Fer Eider’s spirit.
She squirmed in the great chair that was so much like a throne. She wanted to love the beautiful music and the brilliant dancing, because it was all for her. But she couldn’t enjoy it because it was for her. That is, it wasn’t really for her, it was for Sartora. Someone she wasn’t.
The performance closed in a many-voiced Hail Sartora, who saved the world! that made Liere prickle painfully all over as if someone had stuck pins in her.
She forced herself to smile, though her teeth felt cold.
She then forced herself to turn in all directions in the way taught her by Arthur, but she looked over the people’s heads so she couldn’t see their faces, and she shut her mind in tight so she wouldn’t hear the thoughts people sprayed all over so freely.
She spoke the words of thanks that Arthur had helped her put together, and tried not to listen to how spindly and high her own voice sounded. “. . . and so I invite you to partake of refreshments in the Hall of Amber.” She rushed the final words together, embarrassment making her skin crawl as she whispered please-don’t-bow please-don’t-bow.
A rustle and sigh as all the visiting Venn merchants made a profound, deliberate bow.
It was so sickening, so horribly false, and it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t. If she could choose she never would be clumsy, stupid Liere Fer Eider, so boring the Mearsieans had been glad to go home and leave her behind.
Liere forced herself to smile. She got up and extended her hand toward the Hall of Amber, breathing freely once they turned toward the archway leading to the next room. As soon as the guests spied the food and drink, she sensed their attention shifting. A few lingered, apparently wanting to talk to her, but she’d gotten good at evading that.
The visiting Venn were quite tall. She found the tallest, slipped behind him, and waited while Arthur kindly drew attention by pointing out what people could already see: “Here’s our attempt at Venn berry drink. Let us know how it tastes? And there are baked cabbage rolls that we are told are a Venn delicacy . . .”
Liere backed up. A quick step behind a substantial man with a complication of lemon-colored braids, a pause behind a carved column, and she was almost free. She tiptoed to the door, the back of her neck tight until she escaped into the empty hallway beyond.
On the other side of the room, Arthur watched her go, and sighed. She’d told him once that he was an “almost,” that he might “make his unity,” which had something to do with Dena Yeresbeth. If hearing others’ thoughts turned one into a nail-biting, anxious mess like Liere, he didn’t want this Dena Yeresbeth. In fact, if he detected any mysterious signs of such an ability in himself, he would do anything he could to avoid it.
“We have offended Sartora?”
Arthur turned around quickly, to find the Venn emissary standing there. The man was old, his face lined, his pale hair silvery white instead of the mostly-yellows Arthur saw in the rest.
“Not at all,” Arthur said, and because he’d found the emissary easy to talk to, in spite of the Venn reputation for truculence, he added, “She’s not comfortable in crowds.”
The man inclined his head, the light running along the thin gold band around his brow, not quite a coronet. Arthur had seen that some wore them, some didn’t, but he didn’t know what they meant. He knew so little about the Venn, who historically ne
ver came out of their kingdom except to make war, centuries ago.
“Tell me about this child who can save a world, yet not endure a little conversation. Unless you are being diplomatic, and it is not crowds but Venn to whom she objects?”
“She doesn’t know anything about the Venn,” Arthur said quickly. “She came from a town where reading, especially for girls, was discouraged, as they were meant to keep shop. She told me she really liked your crown prince, whom she met after she broke Siamis’s spell over your country.”
The emissary’s brows went up, and he smiled. “He is well-beloved, our Prince Kerendal. I shall take your words as truth, then, though it still does not explain why someone who did what she has done will not remain with us long enough to be thanked.”
“She doesn’t . . .” Arthur began, then halted. Maybe he was saying too much. He had already failed Liere, he felt, though he didn’t know how to fix it. All along he’d wondered why she wanted the Mearsieans to stay, some of whom he found tiresome with their endless private jokes that they clearly thought so hilarious.
It wasn’t until they’d left that he’d seen in Liere’s dejection her hope to be invited back with them.
The sad thing was, though they might be silly or annoying, none of them were snobs. Arthur was very practiced at identifying snobs, after having served as a page and then as King Evend’s chosen heir. The Mearsieans didn’t think they were better than anyone else. They were a closed group. It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that anyone new might want in. Especially Sartora, the Girl Who Saved the World.
The Venn emissary lifted his head. The Venn had divided into groups the way people tend to do in big crowds, a couple of them venturing apart to talk in a stiffly polite way with the magic students on duty.
“It would appear natural,” the emissary said as they paced the perimeter of the Hall, “that someone who had done what she did could enjoy the accolades she earned.”
“But that’s it, she doesn’t,” Arthur said.
“Why not? She cannot think she failed.”
“She was convinced by a friend that Siamis wasn’t defeated. That he retreated, and will come again.”
The Venn lifted his gnarled hand, his embroidered sleeve dropping back to reveal a diamond of Venn knotwork tattooed on his forearm above his wrist. “Norsunder always returns.” Arthur had heard of Venn body art, but had never seen it; then the sleeve dropped back, hiding the mark. “We know that, and perhaps the knowing requires us to celebrate every defeat the more. Surely we would not wish to think, ‘why bother?’ Sartora does not have wise friends, if she has such an attitude at so young an age.”
“It’s not that at all,” Arthur said. “Her friend is a Marloven.”
“Ah-h-h.”
The word was exhaled on a different note. Arthur remembered there was some ancient connection between the horrible, warlike Marlovens and the Venn. He had never wanted to meet any of them, though he’d come to rather like Senrid, puzzling as he was.
The emissary stared down at Arthur, an earnest young mage student without a fragment of the experience that had made wily old Evend such a splendid diplomat as well as mage. The emissary reflected that in olden times, before the magical construct called the Arrow had bound Venn magic, the Venn would have overrun this entire region in three days. In truth, they could do it now without magical aid.
But the old queen had spoken: We will heed the treaty, and thereby we turn dishonor to honor. Norsunder will be back soon enough, and when they come, our former foe shall release the Arrow and welcome us as allies. In the meantime, let us continue to trade. “So in fact her young Marloven friend feels that if Norsunder does return, Sartora will be looked to for defense, perhaps single-handed?”
“That’s it.” Arthur gave a sigh of obvious relief. “Oh, and you should hear the stories about her father—” He caught himself. That was gossip, and he knew better.
The emissary’s gaze sharpened with interest.
Arthur chewed his lower lip. King Evend had always said that the personal would win over the theoretical in almost any discussion. Arthur hadn’t always understood it, as he hadn’t understood a lot of what Evend had said while ruminating during or after their lessons in history and magic, but he was discovering how many of Evend’s observations about human behavior were true.
“Might that explain,” the emissary ventured in a mild voice, while watching Arthur closely, “why Sartora was not restored to the bosom of her family, but lives here among you, young as she is?”
A vivid memory hit Arthur: Liere’s sour-faced father who all three times Arthur saw him had been criticizing Liere in a bitter, scolding voice. The first time made sense. No parent would want to see their child looking the way Liere had, her hair hacked off with a knife during her run, wearing the clothes she’d taken from her brother, worn and patched and outgrown.
But the second time, Arthur had heard Liere’s father whispering to Liere as he held her skinny arm in a tight grip, “Who do you think you are, mentioning people of rank by their private names, as if you were one of them? We thought you’d grown out of putting on airs to be interesting.” And the third time, “Nothing good ever comes of girls getting above their place.”
That was the one that made Liere go silent for a whole week. Until he met Lesim Fer Eider, Arthur had sometimes wished he had a father. Lesim Fer Eider had interrupted his daughter’s every utterance with some criticism, and the morning after his arrival, they’d found him scolding his shrinking daughter for “idling around palaces belonging to her betters,” and had issued an order demanding that she “return home to prepare for her future as a shopkeeper’s wife,” upon which old, sour Head Mage Oalthoreh had retorted, “I never speak against the wishes of families, unless that family is using the bond to propagate ignorance and prejudice. The child has declared her desire to remain here to learn. She may remain here until we have nothing more to teach her.”
Having no answer he would vouchsafe to a mage, who might turn him into a tree stump, or worse—and no real value for his tiresome daughter—Lesim Fer Eider had used the transfer token the mages gave him to take himself away, leaving a general sense of relief when he was gone.
Arthur looked up. They’d walked halfway around the room without him being aware. He glanced the emissary’s way, to encounter an expression of polite inquiry. He couldn’t stop his neck from burning as he said, “Sartora stayed to begin the study of magic.”
“A worthy aspiration,” the emissary said smoothly as he lifted his head.
One of the castle pages entered, leading a familiar boy, white shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, black trousers and riding boots, his yellow hair squared with military precision just above his collar in back, the unruly waves combed back from his forehead, unlike Arthur’s messy hair flopping on his own forehead.
“Senrid,” Arthur exclaimed in blank surprise.
Heads turned, and Arthur had time to wonder whether it was the name or the person that caught the interest of his Venn guests, before Senrid’s quick step closed the distance between them. His searching gaze was just as Arthur remembered, the only difference being the faint marks of healing bruises on his face. Arthur’s stomach tightened. He’d heard plenty about those Marlovens.
The emissary studied Senrid with interest, and though Arthur knew it would sound stupid, there was no etiquette for the sudden and unannounced arrival of kings: “How should I introduce you?”
“Senrid Montredaun-An,” Senrid said with his quick, wry smile. “Came to see Liere.”
That took care of introductions, but not the quandary. What was Arthur’s duty? There were invited guests, and here was a king.
“I can wait,” Senrid said quickly, and Arthur remembered that Senrid, too, could hear thoughts. His neck burned again.
The emissary said suavely, “Perhaps we might resume our conversation when you have mor
e leisure, your highness?”
Arthur knew what that meant: the man was going to interrogate him later. But that was all right. He’d have time to talk it over with his tutors, or his mother, by letter, and he’d know exactly what to say. He and the emissary exchanged courteous bows, and Arthur turned in relief to Senrid. “She’s not in here.”
Senrid’s brows twitched upward. “Tactical retreat, eh?”
“Yes,” Arthur said, though he had no idea what the ‘tactical’ part of retreat meant. He thought in dismay of all the places she could be in the enormous palace . . . but he knew where she had probably gone. “Come with me.”
Chapter Eleven
IN spite of the thick walls and the magic spells aiding the hot air vents, a wintry current snaked along the marble floor, making Liere shiver. Winters had never been this cold in Imar, nor was it dark from midafternoon to midmorning, the sun, when it appeared, riding low and weak far to the south, the light even at noon a soft bluish shade.
She avoided looking up at the long clerestory windows and ran until she couldn’t hear the hubbub from the Celebration Wing. When she reached the huge vestibule with its fine carvings centered around acorns, of all things, she slowed. That way lay the mage school wing, and over this way the living quarters where she had rooms. She still didn’t think of that grand suite as hers, and she didn’t want to go there now. She was afraid to disturb anything, to make work for the servants, and found the silence unsettling, after growing up in a tiny house with a large, noisy family. And though she loved the fine furnishings and bright rugs with their complicated patterns, she couldn’t live among them.
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