A Stranger to Command

by Sherwood Smith

  He scowled at the rafters dimly edged by moon-shadow. He didn’t even like the royal city all that much, and he certainly didn’t know everything that being king entailed.

  Well, one could learn. In fact, people did learn. Like Senrid, at a young age, after being deliberately kept from that knowledge by his uncle. Of course he was already king in name... but the Merindar family wasn’t considered royal by long tradition. If any family was, it was the Calahanras family. But their last member had deliberately renounced her name when she married, and she was now dead.

  Which is why I am here in the first place, Shevraeth thought. If Galdran was shaping an accident for me, is it possible others were thinking about me as a possible candidate for king without my even knowing?

  He was going to have to talk to his father. But it was going to have to wait until he was home again, and they were face to face. The question of kings lay far, far in a hazy future. What lay ahead, and much too soon, was the prospect of being tipped out of bed as a slacker before running out to drill before breakfast.

  o0o

  Over the next stretch of weeks the furious inner debate dwindled to short spurts of memory.

  In the meantime, Shevraeth decided the only thing he could do was read up on kings and kingship. He started his library habit again—at first furtively, because he did not want Senrid catching him there. He couldn’t even articulate why, but in any case, there was no need for worry because gossip from the girls, who continued to surround him whenever he came by the stable (except for Senelac), made it clear that Senrid had not been in the kingdom at all of late.

  So Shevraeth revisited all the memoirs from Marloven kings. Not because he wanted to take them as models, but because at some time they were young, they must have wrestled with the notion of kingship and what was expected. Once he was back in Remalna, he would commence reading there—if, that is, he could slip into the archive with a frivolous-sounding reason.

  There was another reason to be reading.

  Senelac had always taken the initiative in setting their walks in the park. That was fine with him. She was older, more experienced, knew the customs of the country.

  But she hadn’t asked him when his free time was for... what, three weeks?

  He counted up as he trod back from the library late one evening. Three, maybe four weeks. Pretty much ever since Senrid had started the hide-and-find games. The girls had their own games. “We’ll be doing a seek on the girls late in summer,” Stad had told them all, grinning. “And won’t we run a gloat if we win.”

  “Won’t they run a gloat if we lose,” Shevraeth had retorted, to general laughter.

  As for the rest of the academy, there were some vigorous (inevitable) disputes among the younger Houses about the rules of these games. No one liked the “Once found, you’re dead” rule because part of the fun of games for ages and ages had been after you were taken prisoner—you led revolts, you ran rescues and raids and escapes, back and forth, back and forth.

  But the disputes were nothing the rads weren’t used to handling. Gradually the intent of the games was changing, and rads were now ordered to tag as ‘dead’ anyone they spotted in a hiding place. Or heard. The Houses had to hide for a watch, and other Houses as well as rads were dispatched on seek-and-finds. Hiding places picked to allow a counter-attack were no longer favored. The hiding places were getting better. It was odd, in fact, to walk round an apparently empty academy, in apparent silence, and know that one was being observed.

  I might be a Norsundrian. Senrid thinks they’re going to come here, so I should be searching around like one of them would search..

  The uncomfortable thought vanished as Shevraeth rounded a stone corner and ducked through the moss-ceilinged tunnel. As always he cut across the main parade ground so that his route would take him past the stable, which in turn made him think of Senelac. He’d walked this way for two years when returning from the castle, so he could catch a glimpse of the stable on the opposite point of the intersection before the mess hall hid it from view, and maybe see her.

  Gathering darkness shrouded him. His step faltered when he saw the two at the stable gate, so intent they appeared to be oblivious to everything else.

  Forthan sat astride one of the newer three year olds, a mare passing from yard training to rider training. She tossed her head and sidled. Senelac stood against the gate, her arms crossed as she talked to Forthan.

  Both were ordinarily extremely observant, but this time the world had narrowed to one another.

  Shevraeth slowed again. Forthan swung down, holding the reins, his attitude sober. Intense. Senelac was not her usual efficient or lounging self. Her arms were tight, her profile as sober as his as they exchanged a few words, then he pointed to the mare.

  Girls working in the background did not seem to notice the pair, obviously seeing nothing amiss. Two or three fellows on the stable road paid them no attention as they passed.

  Forthan handed over the reins—hands tense. Her hands were stiff as they took the reins. Then he walked off in the direction of the parade ground, which would lead toward the King’s Guard barracks, and Senelac started the mare toward the barn.

  Their heads turned—unwilling yet compelled—a last backward glance. Their gazes locked for a heartbeat, two, then they straightened round again. Neither was smiling, but Shevraeth saw again and again the intensity of that glance, like a sun-shadow against his eyelids.

  Forthan vanished up the road without having seen Shevraeth—who probably could have stood on his head and chanted a two hundred verse court poem without catching his eye—and the gate was closed to the stable, Senelac gone from view.

  She never looked back for me.

  FORTY-THREE

  “It’s our turn for the hide-and-find outside of the academy,” Gannan said to the boys gathered in the House meeting. “We’re going to double it soon as we hear the signal. I mean fast. We can’t let the colts or the scrubs find us. It would be too prime a score-off.”

  Noises of agreement rose all around.

  Shevraeth knew that Stad had made the actual plans—such as they were—but he and the one or two others aware of the truth listened to Gannan as if the game orders were new.

  “We’ll retreat in a straight line back of Sweat Hill, which is probably as far as we can get on foot before nightfall, because we cannot have lights, of course. Then we’ll lie up except for two scouting ahead for the next run. If we make it that far,” Gannan said. “You all have to find a place to lie up for the night, and get what rest you can.”

  “What about food?” Baudan asked.

  Stad stayed silent. Shevraeth suspected either he had forgotten to tell Gannan, or Gannan had forgotten to ask.

  Gannan flicked a revealing glance Stad’s way, then toward the window. “We’re working on that,” he said at last, with no conviction whatever.

  But it seemed to be good enough for now. Shevraeth thought, As long as someone seems to know what to do, most will follow along if they don’t see a solution.

  “All right. Back to your duties, but as soon as you hear the signal, drop everything and run.”

  The signal for the new, longer hide-and-find games was a quick double ring on the bells, what used to be the summons for duty runners to the commander’s office.

  The rules were, seekers had to wait until the next watch bell to go seeking. That was to simulate the Norsundrians arriving in force, sweeping ahead expecting a defense, and then finding the academy empty. They’d then have to assemble and dispatch search teams, all of which might reasonably take a watch.

  But the academy all thought it was to give the hiders a fair chance to hide before they went out searching, since they’d gradually begun realizing that this was not in any way a seek-and-chase sort of game, the way they’d played for ages, but a one chance game. Not as fun as taking prisoners, raiding, rescuing, and breaking out... but if you caught someone, you got a lot more points for your House. And not only were there prime scarfles
for winners, Keriam had arranged the type of incentive that caused everyone from ten to eighteen to strive with every bit of energy and enthusiasm: the Houses with the most points at week’s end were free of chores the whole next week, forcing the losing Houses in each age group to do double chores.

  Pause to imagine the devoted, no, your measureless intensity (if you are a ten-eleven-twelve year old) whose greatest pleasure in life is seeing a boy in a rival House sweeping your floor, straightening your bunk, and neatening your trunk. All while you unload generous helpings of critical commentary and suggestions that you have been cherishing all the long week while you had to listen to same, in silence, from them.

  Gannan dismissed the seniors, and they departed talking. Gradually they were reabsorbed into the usual daily round, until just before supper, ting-ting!

  They downed tools, weapons, gear, and ran.

  Just before supper! The last thing Shevraeth heard, as he dropped his wooden sword into the rack and dashed out of the courtyard, was the nasal whoop of a colt, and a triumphant, “Guess who’ll be good and hungry by the all-in bell?”

  “Wonder whose nose the seniors stung?” someone else asked, laughing.

  Shevraeth was out the gate by then and did not hear the answer. He forgot the second-year colts as he ran alongside a wall, doing his best to stay out of sight of the wall-sentries.

  As he sped by the stable he spotted several of his House passing through at a run, having come over the fence from where they’d been exercising the two year olds. The girls utterly ignored the boys as if they didn’t exist. The horses twitched ears and tails, some stirring restlessly, but the girls’ firm hands and calm voices brought their attention back to duty.

  Shevraeth permitted himself one sweep—he couldn’t help himself—and felt the usual tangle of regret and relief that Senelac was not in sight. He could have no idea she was up in the barn attic, peering through the slats of the breeze-way to watch him run.

  Then he was over the back fence, and into the grassy field, well-trampled by human and hoof prints from a season of maneuvers. Those gradually gave way as he ran, trying to stay in cover, with occasional glances. He knew that their retreat was being watched from the towers, and anyone in command class who could be tracked continually by field glass would get defaulters.

  So he picked low ground, along stream beds. Streams wandered, but were not too bad for running. Plus he could pause for gulps of water.

  When the land began to rise he chose clumps of brush and the occasional copse of trees. The shadows began to blend everything together, making it difficult to see roots, animal holes, rocks. One of the first things the academy taught was an easy, loping run that they could use for almost an entire watch. It was not as fast as an all-out run, but it didn’t leave one breathless and exhausted.

  Finally the sun vanished behind the distant rolling hills, and the shadows deepened into dark. The sounds of other boys’ breathing, the salt-tang of sweat on the air and the intermittent sound of footfalls hissing through summer-dry grasses gradually joined him.

  They passed Sweat Hill while it was still twilight. They topped it and ran on as the light faded. They began to slow, everyone seeking a place to lie up before full dark. Now that they were out here without their usual camp lanterns and torches, they understood how difficult it was to find a hiding place when you cannot see.

  Shevraeth knew the territory enough to remember a sizable stretch of woods ahead. Many were also targeting the forest, though no one spoke.

  Since there was no fighting back, they all wanted a hiding place with at least one escape route. Most were therefore ignoring the trees. But Shevraeth had spent much of his childhood in Renselaeus, high on a wooded mountain, and he and Savona had made a game of seeing how far they could travel through trees without touching the ground. As a boy he’d been very good at gauging interwoven tree branches for this kind of aerial pathway—and yes, here was just what he needed.

  Dark was fully on them as he felt his way up into a broad, smooth-barked tree. All he had to do was find a crook broad enough for him to trust for sleep. It was not hard. He was not all that high up, but he counted on hearing a search before he could see it, which would give him time to get higher into the tree and move along the branches.

  He wedged himself in, staring up through the leaves at the faint stars, and drifted into a kind of half-sleep that broke when he tried to move. He jerked awake with a jolt, his body remembering quite well where he had so dangerously parked it. But when a wind rose, the swaying sent him more deeply into slumber, and the last thought he had before the torchlight and shouts midway through the night was, Now I know why the dawnsingers live in trees.

  Voices and bobbing torches, brought him awake with a snort. He’d been drooling as well as snoring. But the rustle of leaves all around him, the shouts being general and not specific, calmed him down again. At least no one had pegged him by the sounds of his snores.

  The search passed by, one torch bobbing not thirty paces away, as the colts called insults back and forth, laughing, and then passed on.

  Shevraeth resettled himself, sleeping until the weak blue light of dawn. Time to move on as far as he could. But first he had to climb down and look for water for his parched tongue.

  That was his plan, but he’d scrambled through maybe eight or nine trees before there was a shout, “I’ve found one! In the trees! In the trees!”

  Running footsteps to the right—so Evrec had (wisely) stationed sentinels along the search route.

  He tried to lie flat, but the searchers circled in, and as the bright rim of the sun strengthened, they soon spotted him, gloating loudly as he climbed down.

  “And that’s five to us!”

  “No, six,” came a distant yell amid pelting footsteps. “They found Andaun under a mat of grass.”

  At least, Shevraeth thought as he dropped to the ground and someone handed him a flask of water and a chunk of bread, Marlovair wasn’t among the grinning circle.

  o0o

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  Shevraeth stopped so fast he almost stumbled.

  He’d been sitting in the first row in Keriam’s office, so he was the last one out, his thoughts on his new tree plan.

  Senelac tightened her fists, angry with herself. She hadn’t meant to say it.

  Shevraeth’s head whipped round, his body tense and still. A flash of summer-heat desire flashed through her.

  Then came the face she hated, the blank, smooth, polite courtier. A word she’d never used in her life before he came here.

  And then the courtier words, “I beg your pardon if I—”

  “Don’t.” She hated herself for interrupting, because he never reacted like a Marloven, he was so polite. So smooth and cool. It was like trying to stab through sheeted steel, except she didn’t want to stab—she really didn’t.

  Then the skin behind her shoulder-blades crawled and she knew, somehow, that Forthan had heard her address Shevraeth. Ice chased fire through her nerve endings as Forthan ran down the steps, leaving her alone with Shevraeth.

  They were the last after command class wrap up, which was why she’d spoken. And now wished she hadn’t. Yes, she wanted to talk to him again, she couldn’t stand the way he’d been ignoring her. Oh, but wasn’t that best? No, it was different when she chose to ignore him because she knew he wasn’t serious about Marloven Hess, the academy—her. He was serious about frivolous girls who couldn’t do anything but lift a spoon, about courtiers in ribbons and lace, and serious about a king who was apparently even worse than the Regent. So she ignored him.

  That did not give him the right to ignore her.

  Her heart hammered her ribs, her palms damped. He stood there, looking at her, like—

  She gave in to impulse once more, and reached toward his hand.

  His reaction was fast—he pulled away—but their knuckles collided. His head jerked up slightly, causing his hair to drift down into his eyes. She heard the catch
in his breathing. How could the fire possibly be there still? How could it be there for two fellows?

  “Come on,” she snapped, but didn’t mean to snap. “You owe me at least a moment of talk.”

  No, he didn’t. And she knew he knew it.

  But as always, he did not give her the lie, or even call her on acting like a rotten beast. That was not polite.

  She stomped to the stairway and down, intensely aware of his step matching hers down the stair.

  And they emerged to find Forthan waiting, alone.

  She sensed the look that passed between the two, and a new fear flared inside her, and she stepped back so she could see them both, while her inside voice wailed, Why is everything so messy when I was so careful?

  Forthan turned away, walking rapidly toward the Guard-side. She let out a shaky breath at the tight set of his shoulders. How could you tell anyone that somehow a boy she’d always known and admired was suddenly a man—and altogether different? When had that happened?

  She knew that it had, and the fact that Ret Forthan had waited for her so patiently, so quietly, all these years, set her on fire all over again.

  But if she turned around and touched Shevraeth—

  “Come on,” she said rudely, hoping—fearing—hoping he would turn on his heel and go.

  But he fell in step beside her.

  All she’d intended was to get as far away from Guard territory as she could, but as she wrestled with that inner voice, and Shevraeth paced in silence beside her, breathing, she saw where their footsteps were taking them, as simply and unswervingly as they always had.

  The self always knows what it wants, her mother had said. If you’re wise, you will listen. It’s our minds that play tricks on us. But if you’re like everyone else, when you’re young you won’t be wise, because you’ll think you’re smarter than the old folks, and so you’re going to make all the same mistakes we’ve all made.

  Not me, she’d said. Not me.

  Score to you, Mama.

  Senelac saw the park ahead. Shevraeth had followed. Once again the lightning jolted her when she recalled the fun they’d had there, and so she tried to jolt him.