Atan nodded slowly. “Good. Anything that gets Derek to see people as people, and not as bad-people-with-rank versus good-people-without-rank, will go toward proving Tsauderei’s dire prediction wrong. I know he wants it to be.”
Rel remembered the wild enthusiasm of the brigades when Derek spoke of raising their banner—defending the kingdom—heroism and fame and glory. He looked down at the trefoil patterns in the mosaic tiles, feeling as if he’d done something wrong, or that he was part of a huge something going wrong, and he had no idea how to fix it. Yet everyone around him believed they were in the right.
It was a relief to reach the concert hall where his Sartoran friends awaited his and Atan’s arrival, everyone self-conscious in their best. Mendaen and Hannla closed in on either side of Rel, competing cheerily for news of his latest adventures.
Rel gave them a very truncated version as he looked about for the aristocrats among the Rescuers. None of them were present. And he saw Atan’s true purpose: she had arranged this special party, and attended it herself, as a silent rebuke to her high council for planning a festival that only included the high-ranking Rescuers.
* * *
4741, New Year’s Week, Marloven Hess to Bereth Ferian
On the other side of the continent, Senrid watched from his study window as Forthan commanded the third-year seniors in drilling the exhibitions intended as Second Night’s entertainment for New Year’s Week Convocation.
The exhibition far outstripped the lance demonstration the second-year seniors had been working on during mornings. This carefully choreographed fight on horseback, with real cavalry blades, was insanely dangerous, especially when they insisted on real strikes—‘real’ meaning sending sparks flying.
But Keriam officially did not take notice, and Senrid watched from a distance, knowing that these determined rehearsals in the face-cracking cold of nighttime were in part a kind of apology, and in part an attempt to shed the last of the shame of the academy troubles during spring.
It would be a relief to disperse those seniors at the end of New Year’s Week for their two years of duty with the guards. Keriam had been very careful to split them all up, assigning the worst of the Regent’s toadies’ sons to the border garrisons, away from their special cronies. Those remaining in the capital, like Forthan, were mostly not troublemakers, save one whom Keriam wanted to keep under his eye.
Senrid nearly turned away, then spotted a lone figure climbing into the stone stands to watch the last of the rehearsal: the foreigner, known only as Shevraeth.
It had been impulse to accede to the surprising letter from that prince in Remalna. The Renselaeus family and Senrid were related way back in the family tree, but that shouldn’t matter. Senrid was more nearly related to Leander Tlennen-Hess of Vasande Leror, and it would never have occurred to him to invite Leander to the academy.
Not that Leander would ever accept. He loved studying magic and history as much as he loathed anything military. If he hadn’t ended up as king of that tiny polity that once had belonged to Marloven Hess, he would probably be in Bereth Ferian’s mage school right now, or in Sartor’s scribe school, studying magic at nights so that he could become a herald-archivist in the mage guild.
Shevraeth sat down there alone in the stands, papers and a book tucked under his arm, as he blew on his fingers.
The third year seniors might think Shevraeth was studying, but he was actually waiting for Forthan, as he was tutoring Forthan in secret. Usually early mornings before anyone was awake, except this week, when Forthan was overseeing the second-year seniors’ exhibition.
Keriam had said to Senrid, That is your future army commander. There isn’t a better candidate in the entire country. Fix the problem now.
Officially, Senrid wasn’t supposed to know Forthan was illiterate, so he’d sent him to Shevraeth, who had no assignment, but could not go back to his home, where a bad king threatened his life. Turned out the foreigner was a good tutor. If only everything else were so easy to fix—
Senrid!
Senrid recoiled violently, then spun around purposelessly in a circle, his fingers whipping out the dagger he wore up his sleeve, as his brain recognized the cry as inward, coming from a distance impossible for the ear: Liere.
Senrid transferred to Bereth Ferian, and staggered against the Destination chamber wall, feeling like he’d fallen from a galloping horse. He heard Liere on the mental plane and ran toward her until he fetched up outside a room he recognized at a glance. Liere stood there, her stiff arms held away from her sides, thin fingers spread like starfish.
“Senrid,” she gasped on a high note. “It’s gone.”
Senrid glanced past her at the table. Siamis’s sword was no longer there. On the table lay a jumble of spell books and other stuff as mages in gray and white robes walked around the room, whispering spells.
Terror had widened the pupils in Liere’s eyes, making them look enormous in her blanched face.
There was more than met the eye, Senrid was absolutely certain of it. Equally certain that somehow Siamis was watching for reactions, he said carelessly, “Bet you he had a transfer spell on it. He’s probably a continent away. More. Sitting in Norsunder Base, swigging bristic and laughing fit to be sick.”
Liere’s wide, terrified gaze shifted to the table.
Senrid shut up. He stepped inside the room, and saw that what he’d taken as a jumble of light magic stuff was not: the spell books and the old scroll formed a careful circle around a single object, a round gold coin. Senrid’s guts tightened as he took another step. Round coins were a northern thing, and sure enough, this one had been hammered with a shape like a hawk’s eye.
Senrid knew that shape, that coin. It sported the earliest symbol of the Erama Krona, the Eyes of the Crown during the earliest days of the Venn empire, before the Marlovens left.
This hawk’s eye had been adopted by Senrid’s own ancestors.
A golden eye . . .
“Shit,” Senrid said.
Two of the mages looked around in silent rebuke, and a stern-faced old woman whom Senrid recognized as Oalthoreh, the head of the Bereth Ferian mages, frowned direfully and said, “What is he doing here?”
She talked past Senrid to Arthur, lurking in the doorway next to Liere.
“I called Senrid,” Liere spoke up bravely, though her voice quavered. She tapped her head. “This way.”
Senrid schooled his expression, though deeply appreciating the effect Liere’s gesture had on the mages, two of whom stepped away. As if that would prevent Liere from reading their minds.
“I think it’s an ancient Venn coin,” Senrid said with what he hoped was a helpful air.
“We know that,” Oalthoreh snapped.
Senrid resisted the impulse to bait her, which would be too much like the way Siamis (or his uncle, even worse) was baiting these mages by leaving that coin lying there. A coin that Senrid made a mental wager had lain outside of time since those early days, as it looked newly struck. The only people who might have personal hordes like that were Ancient Sartorans: Siamis. Or Detlev.
So what to do? Get Liere out of there. Senrid’s first thought was to take her back with him to Marloven Hess, except it was New Year’s Week. She’d been intimidated by the castle full of jarls and their attendants the year before. And then there was that kick in the gut he got when he first recognized the coin.
But. When he took in Liere’s blanched face, he said, “Think, Liere. The sword is gone. Siamis isn’t here. It’s probably just a scare tactic.”
Arthur watched in amazement as Liere’s face colored up, and she seemed to breathe for the first time that day. “Oh. Oh,” she said, her relief obvious. Though Arthur had been saying pretty much that same thing.
“Right. He’s not here,” she said quickly, her fingers twisting together. “So why is that coin there?”
“An
insult, a challenge, another scare tactic. A different kind of being stupid,” Senrid said, piling on the sarcasm, sure that Siamis was somewhere about listening. He itched to return to the room and try magic on that coin. But he had to leave it for the more experienced mages.
He tipped his head toward the door. Liere and Arthur followed him out, and they walked in silence until he felt certain there was no chance Siamis could hear them. “Look, it probably means Siamis is coming back, but as he hasn’t actually done anything, and seems to want to scare everybody out of their pants with that damned coin, I think you should just go somewhere so you don’t have to see it. Those Mearsiean girls seem to collect strays. I’ll take you there, if you want to hunker down out of sight. I wanted to ask Clair if she’s heard anything lately about Jilo. Or if you don’t like going there without an invitation, how about Roth Drael, with Hibern?”
Liere brightened. “I remember that place. It’s where we freed the dyr, isn’t it? I loved it. Would Hibern mind?”
“I can take you, and we’ll ask,” Arthur offered.
They walked back toward the treasure room, encountering Oalthoreh and three of her mages coming down the hall, as a fresh group entered the chamber to investigate.
Arthur explained the plan. Neither he nor Senrid missed the obvious relief in Oalthoreh’s face at the idea of getting Liere safely away, before she said, “We will continue to test for traps and wards.”
As Arthur and Liere walked toward the residence wing, she to collect some things, Senrid took a quick step inside the treasure room to grab another look at that coin. Ancient Venn, definitely. Connection to his own family . . . maybe it was just borrowing trouble, because the first thing anyone does is see themselves connected to whatever is going on.
Yeah, Senrid thought. Like the old saying, he was probably putting one and one together to make eleven.
* * *
—
From Norsunder Base, the elite watched Senrid from the chamber they called the Window. Whenever someone successfully planted a spy-hole in a distant location, this was where they observed.
Siamis presided, urbane as a good host. It was fun seeing grim old Oalthoreh squawking orders like a hen, and the mages scurrying around muttering as they cast spells for traps and tracers.
The real fun for some occurred when the Marloven brat briefly showed up. He himself was disappointing. Looked barely old enough to cut his food by himself, and the only thing he said was so obvious it didn’t need saying: “I think it’s an ancient Venn coin.”
Through the derisive crowing—“You think so?”—“The Marlovens have gone to seed if that’s what’s ruling them!”—“When Detlev finally gives us our Marloven party we’ll clean them up in a day!”—Siamis said cheerfully, “You’ll get your own hawkeye soon, Senrid.”
The watchers fell silent, one or two telegraphing messages with looks. So, Siamis was poaching on territory Detlev had claimed for himself, was he?
Kessler stood at the back, observing them all. He never laughed. Never commented.
Chapter Twelve
Various points around the world, in reaction to bad news
ONCE more, Hibern arrived in Choreid Dhelerei to be told that Senrid would not be available for study.
The entire castle seemed gripped by tension, the sentries—never lax—wary, with hands on the hilts of their weapons. She knew better than to ask, and hoped the problem was merely more trouble with those teenage boys in the academy.
She arrived in Sartor happily anticipating a free hour to explore.
By now Hibern had ventured into several cities, and was astonished by not just architectural differences, but ways in which otherwise utterly different cities could be alike. She suspected Atan would be appalled, for instance, to have Eidervaen compared to Marloven Hess in that neither capital city had scribble-scrabble words and drawings on walls and fences, as Hibern had found in Miraleste, the capital of Sarendan.
She’d asked Lilah, who explained proudly that Peitar thought it was important for ordinary people to be able to make art and to express themselves. Lilah had added with a brief scowl, “It used to get you in trouble, under my uncle. My friend Bren was really good at drawings about how rotten things were then.”
Hibern wondered if the so-civilized Colend would hand out death sentences if people marred their walls and fences with slogans and scrawls—except when invited.
She was ready to talk about that after another walk through Eidervaen, but when it was time to go to the royal palace, Atan met Hibern with a solemn face. “I have to give up my hour of frivolity,” she said bitterly, then clapped her hands over her face, and dropped them in fists to her sides. “No, that’s unfair. It’s just that I insisted that I hear the high council’s deliberations about what to do . . .”
Hibern was so surprised to be shut out by two study partners in a row that she didn’t ask what they were deliberating about. “And so your new schedule doesn’t even permit one hour a month?” she asked.
“So they say.” Atan sighed. “And I have to accept it, or they’ll shut me out of the real deliberations. When I dared to point out it was only one hour a month, they all looked at me like I’m a sulking brat, selfishly taking up time that ought to be put into finding ways to ward Norsunder.”
A brat like Atan’s wild little cousin? Hibern kept her opinion behind a blank expression. Clearly something else more urgent was wrong.
“We’ll still communicate,” Atan promised.
“Right,” Hibern said, wondering what the etiquette was. She suspected that Erai-Yanya would say, “You leave the first letter to the Queen of Sartor.”
She was ready to discuss it when she arrived back in Roth Drael, but fence scrawls and Atan’s restrictive council went out of her head when she arrived to a waiting missive from Arthur relating the news:
Siamis took the sword.
“Horseapples!” Hibern exclaimed in Marloven, and threw herself down at her desk to start writing letters.
* * *
Siamis is back.
Word spread across the world faster than the sun’s daily course, reaching everywhere but the most isolated corners. And Chwahirsland, as who talked to them?
Senrid, who might have, still wasn’t used to thinking about communication going outward from him. His notecase sat forgotten on his desk as he conferred with Keriam, and with his army commanders via runner.
Most countries looked to their own defenses—magical wards and tracers, militias mobilized and armies drilled. Diplomats conferred earnestly, referring to defense treaties in hopes that the stronger would protect the weaker.
* * *
In Sarendan, Derek paced back and forth along the top rail of an old fence so the crowd of defenders in the city of Miraleste could see him. His face lifted, his eyes wide so the sunlight struck glints of amber in them as he shouted, “It’s just as we feared! But we shall fear no more! Fear no more!”
“Fear no more!” shouted the brigade.
“We shall not fear, we shall fight!”
“We shall fight!” the brigade echoed back.
Derek swung his sword, sunlight flashing along the steel as he walked. “We know that there’s a vast army at Norsunder Base. But vast armies must move like anyone else, that much we won when Siamis was here before. The big rifts between Norsunder and us are gone.”
A few shouted, “Gone,” but the rest waited, or stirred, or whispered.
Instinctively aware that he’d lost the rhythm, Derek swung the sword higher. “They have to march. And where will they go, to get to the rest of us?”
Now they were paying attention again. “They either march to their west, which means carrying months of water through benighted land. Or they go north into Sartor, and risk magical traps. Or they try to come through us. We’re the first line of defense! Sarendan!”
“Sarendan!”
“And it’s not our king who can defend us, though he’s a good king, the best who ever lived, my friend and brother. But his strength is wisdom and justice. He does not carry a sword. For that, he trusts me. And whom do I trust?”
A more confused response—“Us!” “The brigades!” “City guard?” And even, “King Peitar!”
Derek’s voice lifted over the noise. “Do I trust the nobles?”
They knew that one. “No!”
“There aren’t enough of them even if they were all united in wanting to protect us. Who has the numbers? The people! Who has the will to defend themselves? The people. Whom do I trust?”
This time he got the response he wanted, united in a heartfelt body of sound: “The people!”
“So let us train as one heart, one will, and one strong arm, to defend Sarendan!”
* * *
In Mearsies Heili, Clair and CJ stood on a balcony high on a spire in the palace on the mountain, looking out over a hushed world of white from an early snow.
“Why is it that everything turns beautiful under snow?” CJ asked, enormously pleased. She’d come from a part of Earth where there was no snow, and subsequently, could not get enough of it. As long as she didn’t have to travel in it.
“No idea. But it does.” Clair hated to ruin the quiet with anxious things, but even thinking that made her realize that the quiet was already ruined. And so she broached the subject that had made her brood for two days. “CJ, I got two letters, one from Puddlenose’s friend Karhin in Colend, and another from Hibern. They both reported that Siamis’s sword disappeared from Bereth Ferian.”
CJ recoiled. “Does that mean Siamis is back? Where?”
“They don’t know. Nobody saw it taken. All the wards were destroyed. They think it’s some kind of warning.”
A Sword Named Truth Page 39
