A Stranger to Command

by Sherwood Smith

  I think what this means is, first, though the ritual might be monstrous in our eyes, the reasoning is sometimes not monstrous, and that kingdoms, kings, and citizens are not so simple to dismiss as wholly evil—or to praise as wholly good. At least, I hated every single thing about what they did today. I will never agree that such a rule would be beneficial to any civilized kingdom, but at the same time, I cannot take comfort in the civilization of Remalna if our king is killing people on whim, and there is no recourse. It’s not so easy to impose one’s sense of what is right onto others, especially without trying to understand what they consider right. Because Forthan—who caught the worst of it, though he’s not a villain—went along with the horror after accepting blame for a lack of leadership. Can you imagine Galdran ever accepting blame for any mistake? I sure can’t.

  So, the side with power as well as the side who has sworn to obey that power must keep the rules as do the governed. Or there can be no mutual good. Yes? No?

  That brings me to the third thing. Though I think their rules barbaric, I don’t believe our letters will secretly be read. When you sent yours, no one had opened the seals. Commander Keriam admitted straight out that he reads any letters that come, though he couldn’t read mine. He trusted me to read your letter and not talk about it, which I have honored. The result you see here. Yet Russav’s letter to me made it plain he had to sneak his note to Mother, because of Galdran’s spies. So—and this really sticks in my throat—maybe in the Marlovens’ eyes, we Remalnans are not civilized. Anyway, I don’t think they’ll be nosing into these... and if they do, well, it’s not like I know anyone’s state secrets in whatever country I’m in.

  A bit more, then I’ll have done. It is such a relief to know that I can send this accumulated pile of added-to letters at last. I hope you can get Russav’s share to him. Read them or not as you will. As you can see there remains little space at the end of this paper, and I do not want to begin a new sheet. I do not know how long the magic lasts on these things. So for now this is all. My love to you and Mother, you are always in my heart—

  Vidanric

  He slid the papers inside the gold case, whispered the words given in the instruction sheet, and felt a faint tingle through his fingers.

  When he looked inside, the papers were gone.

  o0o

  The box was still empty the next morning, when Janold came in with a paper in his hand, and read, to everyone’s intense interest, a series of numbers after each name.

  Shevraeth could not make sense of his. Four, two to eight; five, four to eight; three, zero to eight; seven, seven to ten and so forth meant nothing, until he saw by the reactions of the others that these scores of his were not to be regarded as mean, or unrespectable.

  Then, judging by reactions and comments of the others, he decoded them enough to comprehend that the first number indicated his standing in a given form—riding, sword, archery, knife, and so on—and the second range of numbers indicated his improvement, as scored not against the others but against himself. ‘Eight’ was considered in the range of high achievement for first-year colts. His single ten, in knife throwing, was considered first-year senior level.

  At the end, Janold put the paper down and gave a nod. “So for this year’s summer game Ponytail House has been assigned horse pickets.”

  A shout of approval rose.

  Janold grinned. “Mouse House got cook tent.”

  Laughter, taunts, and joking threats.

  On the way to mess, Vandaus said, “Shevraeth, has anyone explained the summer game to you?”

  “You mean the gymkhana? Or is this another overnight?”

  Vandaus flicked a hand. “The gymkhana is horse competition. Won’t be much this year, with the ranking seniors either gated or bunked. That is, we’ll win more events, because there aren’t many seniors to carry off the best scores, but no one will come watch. Except us.”

  Vandaus and Stad walked on either side of him. Stad said, “The summer game is a battle involving the entire academy. We’re in two armies, see. Some years it’s all mixed, others not. This year it’s north Houses against south.”

  “Armies,” Shevraeth repeated. “Objective same as before, prisoners, territory, and flags?”

  Two flicked hands indicated assent.

  Vandaus said, “We first and second-years do setup and maintenance. During the week the little boys get the grunt chores, like we did when we were little. If there was a real war, see, we all would be running errands, doing the chores. There aren’t any servants on the field of battle, never have been. Our ancestors far enough back rode the plains. Didn’t even have houses. So the boys are runners, and maybe will get to have a sortie or two of their own, depending on the commanders.”

  “Who are the commanders?”

  A quick exchange of looks, and they paused inside the corridor, out of sight of the others.

  Stad said, lowering his voice, “Ordinarily it would have been Forthan versus Zheirban. This year it’ll be Zheirban versus someone else, maybe even the top ranking second-year senior. They probably won’t tell us until the day. Third-year seniors being still in Norsunder, all of ’em except our House radlavs.” He pointed with his chin toward Janold, who walked a few paces ahead. “And they had their own defaulters to work off, for having broken bounds to go to that brushfire.”

  Shevraeth said, “What I want to know is, how do the horses figure in? So far in these games we’ve been running about. But I understand our performance in the riding test gained us something?”

  “Yes! That’s the fun of it. Mouse House will be mostly overseeing the scrubs at chores, and doing all the cooking for the entire academy. This year we’ll be guarding the picket line as well as tending horses with the second-year colts, who usually tend weapons and gear. Everybody’ll run sorties against us to capture horses. So we’ll get some fun.”

  Stad grinned in anticipation.

  “Seniors can fight on horseback, with the wooden swords. We chalk the edges, so a hit shows on their tunics.”

  Stad’s smile disappeared, and both boys looked around. “This year, though, you can bet the masters will be there, all of them. And one single duel, one break of the rules, and—”

  “Dust-storm,” Andaun said gloomily.

  “Well, they won’t.”

  Four heads turned with the quickness of guilt. Shevraeth did not react with guilt, but he was startled to see Janold standing behind them, his eyes narrowed, expression about as giving as a stone wall.

  “You’ll see. After you get about your business.” Tap, tap, the wand against the palm.

  They ran.

  o0o

  The gymkhana, already half-ruined by the lack of participation from the gated seniors, was thoroughly ruined by a thunderstorm. The mud was only fun for a while. The rest of the competition was mostly grim endurance. But rivalry is seldom entirely absent; the lower Houses competed as determinedly as ever, and Ponytail House acquitted themselves well enough.

  With that, the year’s events were mostly over, except for the summer game. On the morning of their departure, the others woke well before dawn, jokes, kicks, punches, fake wrestling all expressing the hilarity of anticipation, the relaxation of the monotonous regular schedule, the way words never could.

  Shevraeth did not share their elation, but he was used to his emotions running orthogonal to the others’. His chief reaction was a sharp disappointment that swiftly turned to resignation when he surreptitiously checked his mysterious golden case and found it empty. Again.

  He had to laugh at himself as he finished dressing. Months and months of accustomed silence, then a letter. Now that anticipation of communication had changed from waiting through months to waiting a day, he was annoyed when the day passed without another letter.

  He had not been commanded, but he regarded the secrecy of the case as a matter of trust—of honor—all the more to be heeded because he had not been admonished. Keriam had told him why the others were not permitted
communication. So he decided on his own that he would not bring the golden box on the summer game, severe though the temptation was. He suspected any sort of secret was impossible to keep while living in a tent with a lot of others.

  The sun was bluing the eastern sky when Ponytail House reported to the stable to take charge of the horses chosen for this exercise. The girls were already there, their faces glum. Girls were only newly allowed in the academy at all, after a generation of being shut out. Command had decided that, as yet, girls were not going on the field games.

  And so they showed in their short answers, their many insults slung between instructions, how disgusted they were that things were not changing fast enough for them.

  The boys all knew better than to give them any trouble.

  Instead, they and the girls together saw to the organization of the field gear for the animals, and got everything ready short of actual saddling, which would follow breakfast, their last meal in the academy before departure to the game site.

  As soon as that was over (the fastest meal of the year) they ran to the stable, and so they were ready to ride, their Ponytail House banner (gripped in Stalgred’s hands) limp in the weak morning breeze, when the seniors came riding out of their own compound.

  The sight of them thunderstruck Shevraeth with another lesson about violence, pain, glory, and the warp and weft of the human spirit:

  At the head of the North House seniors was Zheirban, as expected. But riding at his side was Retren Forthan.

  He was thin, his face so blanched it was nearly green, but he sat straight; he rode at the head of the South House, obviously intending to spend a week sleeping on the dirt in the field, exchanging stinging blows with willow swords.

  And the younger boys greeted him as they’d greet a hero.

  A spontaneous cheer echoed up the stone walls, a heartfelt roar Forthan only acknowledged with two inadvertent patches of color high on his cheeks. Shevraeth was amazed at his own reaction, for he was yelling, too.

  SIXTEEN

  “Ah, my dear,” said Princess Elestra of Renselaeus, as relieved as she was overjoyed to see her husband safely home from the court at Athanarel Palace in Remalna-city.

  Prince Alaerec bent his head and saluted his wife with a kiss, but his joy at their reunion was diminished by the tension in her hands as she embraced him.

  They could not speak until they were alone. His heart beat faster. He was the only one who could have court news, so that wasn't making her tense. This could only mean that the mysterious gold case they had been so unaccountably sent from faraway Marloven Hess had actually brought return letters by magical transfer all the way across the continent.

  She slid her arm through his, and with the strength of many years’ practice helped him walk down the corridor, his painful gait much eased.

  As soon as they were alone in their own chambers she helped him into one of the deep, cushioned chairs they’d had specially made, as he could not sit on floor cushions. Age made walking difficult even with her help; he caught his breath as she took from inside her gown a number of small-folded, exceedingly rumpled sheets of paper.

  “Danric has been writing from the beginning. He sent them one after another, not half a day after you left. There are some here for young Russav.” She laid her hands on a locked box of carved wood lying on his desk.

  “Those you will have to take to Remalna-city,” the Prince said.

  “Me?” Princess Elestra widened her eyes.

  The Prince gave her a grim smile. “I rather think my bad hip is going to take a severe turn for the worse, as is your mind, my very dearest dear. When next we are summoned to court, I think it better if you begin hosting parties, the more frivolous the better. A distraction has become desperately necessary, and it is we who must provide it.”

  She put her head to one side. “A jester, or a gambler? Would distraction serve, or competition?”

  “I hardly know. I had not considered that.” He kissed her hands. “I leave it to your discretion. If you must gamble, make the stakes high.”

  “Royally high, yes.” She smiled with irony as she ruffled her fingers through her wavy gray-brown hair, dislodging her careful coif. The result, with her large eyes so wide, made her look a little eccentric, even vacant. “And manage to lose more than I win, to keep the sense of competition keen.”

  “Ah, yes. My grandmother wrote something like that during her days at Everon’s court. Am I right?”

  “I was rereading her memoir recently, which is where I got the notion. But that aside. If you wish, I shall take these letters to Russav. Before we talk more you must read Danric’s letters to us.”

  Now he knew that she was disturbed by whatever their son had written to them, and so he decided not to change from his dusty riding clothes. He would read the letters now.

  He took up the first rumpled paper. His heart constricted at the sight of his son’s dear, familiar hand.

  Elestra sat nearby, waiting in silence until he was done. It was not a short wait, but she was a patient woman.

  When he set aside the last paper and met her expectant, sad gaze, he winced. “I was wrong. Is that what you are thinking? The risk of leaving him there is greater than that of bringing him home?”

  Elestra rose and paced before the window, her tiny body in its exquisite gown silhouetted against the mighty waterfall, silver-gilt in the sunlight. “First tell me the gist of your court news.”

  “It’s Arthal,” the Prince said, referring to King Galdran’s sister Arthal, Marquise of Merindar. “Stirring them. So softly, so rarely, I nearly missed it. Increasing the anger toward Galdran even more than he does on his own. Once is not random, not with Arthal. And twice is a warning to take heed.”

  “Oh, definitely gambling, then.” Elestra smiled, already full of ideas for her court strategy.

  He lifted his hand in acknowledgement. “Meanwhile I have no proof of any of our surmises; I’ve been forestalled at every turn. That is not like Galdran, the very meticulous care, the thinking ahead of me at every path. That is Arthal.”

  Elestra pressed her fingers to her lips.

  Alaerec said bluntly, “She speaks of going to visit the court at Sles Adran, ostensibly to see her son, but more likely to seek suitors for that dreadful daughter. Before she leaves, I really believe she is attempting to drive Galdran mad with fear and rage.”

  “Which is the greater danger?” Elestra murmured.

  “I don’t know. What I fear is that he’s going to push those of us in court to fighting one another. And when he’s got us to half destroy one another, she could then return from abroad to the kingdom’s rescue.”

  “You think the fighting is imminent?”

  “Not yet. No one thinks of actually taking up arms—not even Galdran. They only see the increase in lawlessness, the frequency of road theft and burglary in the towns and so forth, without comprehending that most of those unfortunates have been driven from homes by the increase in taxes. He sees the kingdom’s restless element as a direct flouting of his royal will. And so he talks of more stringent laws, and more extreme measures against lawbreakers. Always, always hiring more guards to enforce his will. Which means higher taxes to pay for them. All talk, as yet, but no actions taken.”

  She nodded. “What you say strengthens my resolve, that though I miss him terribly, Danric has to stay where he is.”

  “You recognize that he is changing.” The Prince’s manner was one of question.

  She turned away, wringing her hands, clapping them together, and wringing them again, rare signs of anguish. He endured the same anguish, on his son’s part and on hers.

  When she turned again, her eyes gleamed with tears. “Change is inevitable for us all. We agreed on that. But if he returns...”

  The Prince sighed. “I strongly believe we dare not bring him home while Flauvic Merindar is kept out of the kingdom, at the court of Sles Adran. If Arthal wants her own son out of Galdran’s way when she wishes to see him heir
, then I believe it wise to emulate her in this one thing.”

  There was a long, painful silence, then Elestra said softly, “Then we are agreed. Vidanric must remain where he is. And we must trust that he keeps his moral balance.”

  The Prince bowed, his gaze on the letters in his hands. “We have been granted this means of staying in contact. We must exert ourselves to communicate with him, not to remonstrate or scold, but to provide...”

  “Moral balance?” she asked, her smile wry. “When we talk of lying to the king by implication?”

  The Prince shook his head sadly. “I don’t see any easy way to save the kingdom, to save ourselves, to save our son. Except by doing what we are doing now.”

  o0o

  ...and I have to admit that the sight of the seniors riding with grace and precision, their wooden swords clashing, would fire the laziest heart. No, it’s more honest to say the most civilized heart. At least it did mine. Does that mean my heart, if not the generality of human hearts, is not truly civilized? That ferocity is more inspiring to us than tranquility, or is it that this war gaming is more fun? For always in the back of my head is the knowledge that no one was going to die on that plain, that the masters were all there in force to see that grudges did not make the lightning-strike change to real fighting with intent to kill. They are certainly all capable of it.

  And so, during these last weeks after the summer game all I could think was, in two years, if I am still here, I will be the one riding under those snapping banners on the back of the best-trained horses in the world, and I will be fighting in that style, or racing across the plain in a charge. And I have to admit I can hardly wait.

  So my first year is all but done, and I survived. So did the academy. My House even got two more scarfles—and after the unending plainness of the regular food, I’ve come to regard those honey-buns as high treats of the most exquisite rarity. As for survival, my riding boots didn’t. My poor mother would probably faint if she saw the holes in them, and the corresponding ones in my stockings. But at least my feet stayed cool over the heat of the last month, with this added ventilation. As soon as the other boys are gone, I’m digging my civilized shoes out.