Two of the senior girls had separately gone to Ranet and asked to be sent over to the queen’s training. As one girl said, “I know the academy trains captains. But if being a captain means beating my sixteen-year-old sister bloody, I’d rather ride under Henad Sindan-An. We all know her wings are the fastest in the kingdom, and she’s never used a stick on anyone, not that I’ve heard.”
The girls were transferred, scorned by those who stayed behind. Jethren made it clear that only the toughest as well as the fastest and deadliest would be chosen for this year’s garrison game.
And so it was.
It was a rainy summer when Rat arrived at Hesea Springs, where Connar, Jethren, and the academy seniors were waiting.
While the seniors drilled until exhausted under the hard eyes of Jethren’s two captains—finally captains of their own companies—Connar called them together, saying, “The game will begin here. You are invaders, and your goal is to attack Ku Halir and Tlen at the same time, or as near as you can.”
Rat Noth hated returning to Ku Halir, which still featured in his nightmares, but before he left, he admitted to Bunny that Connar’s plan made sense. Of course he’d want to find ways to better defend the city in case Elsarion did come back.
Connar went on, “I asked Ghost Fath to bring down some volunteers from Halivayir to harass your supply lines on your way east. Let’s make it a challenge,” he finished, smiling.
Rat grinned. He hadn’t seen Ghost Fath for what felt like a lifetime. Same with Stick Tyavayir. “I received a runner from Braids Senelaec,” Connar added, as Cheese Fath brought in a tray of braised trout and fresh-steamed cabbage. “He’ll provide some defenders at Tlen. So you decide between you who will attack Ku Halir and who Tlen.”
Early the next morning, in the royal city, Lineas woke to find a silhouette at the end of the bed, outlined in weak blue light. “Quill?”
His head turned. “I just heard from Camerend.” He lifted the paper, which curled at the ends. “He heard from Uncle Vanda.”
Lineas remembered that the man Quill called “uncle” was a former royal runner, and a longtime friend of Camerend and Mnar Milnari, though as far as she knew, no actual relative of either. Why he had lived in Lorgi Idego for decades she didn’t know, but she’d learned while at Darchelde that this Uncle Vanda was close friends with the King of Lorgi Idego, one of the reasons there were good relations between the two kingdoms.
She sat upright. Letters at dawn were seldom a good sign. “Is something wrong?”
“It seems that the Bar Regren have attacked Andahi Castle twice since they took the Nob. Prince Cama is trying to convince his father to let him lead their defensive force up the peninsula to retake the Nob, and settle it as an Idegan harbor. No one was surprised when regular trade began refusing to land at the Nob, as the Bar Regren predictably began charging fees that are outright piracy. But now that trade is also wary of landing at Andahi because of the fighting. That would be very bad for our spice trade.”
Lineas shut her eyes, calling up the map. “Why don’t they just sail to Lindeth?”
“It has something to do with currents and winds. The better half of the year—which would be anything not winter—the islanders can easily reach Andahi, then go on down the strait. Sailing to Lindeth instead means rounding the peninsula against currents and winds. They’d lose months of the strait trade before the winds turn against them again.”
Lineas’s response was more polite than interested, and he knew that to her the situation was remote. He tucked the letter away until the end of the day, when he and Vanadei could speculate as they copied out the day’s records.
Which they continued to do over the next few days, as a series of thunderstorms crashed through, heading for the plains to the east.
Then came another note in Quill’s golden notecase, from their ferret in Ku Halir. The three were alone that morning, as no petitioners had turned up, and Noddy had gone up to the tower to watch a truly spectacular storm, leaving them to finish up some copywork in anticipation of a free afternoon.
Quill took the note from his case, and read it out to Vanadei and Lineas: Connar and his wargamers had been sighted. This year, not only Ku Halir was to defend itself against attackers, but also Tlen! Everybody was looking forward to the fun.
“Another castle defense,” Vanadei commented when Quill was done reading. “And Rat Noth leading the attack!”
“Last year was castle defense as well,” Quill said as he pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward him.
Lineas said soberly, “It doesn’t surprise me, after that dreadful winter at Frozen Falls.”
“True.” Vanadei jabbed his penknife in the air. “Whew, it’s still hot in here. When will these storms stay long enough to cool things off?”
Quill’s pen scratched rapidly across the page. When he’d finished a line, he muttered, “Why two castles at once?”
Vanadei sat back. “More fun? There’s no threats, right? Elsarion still crowned with bird droppings in his Garden of Shame?”
Thunder crackled and boomed overhead. Lineas watched the windows glow blue-white, leaching the world of color. She wondered if she should go see if the Lanrid ghost was at its usual post near the stable, and how it would look in the lightning’s glare.
Vanadei continued to carve his nib, until he noticed Quill sitting very still, his pen slowly forming a round drop of ink, which splatted onto the page.
“Damn,” Quill said softly.
He wasn’t looking at the page.
Lineas, always sensitive to every subtlety in his voice, forgot ghosts and turned to face him. “Quill, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing—maybe—I don’t know.” He threw the pen down. “Where’s the map?”
Noddy kept a rolled map in the little room next door, for he liked to see exactly where petitioners came from. Quill sprang up, fetched it, and spread it out on Noddy’s empty desk. The other two set aside their writing tools and turned on their mats, eyes shifting from Quill to the map to Quill again.
He glanced up, his body taut. “What if...this is not practice for defense?”
“What else could it be?” Lineas asked.
“Where are you going with this question?” Vanadei asked, drawing his sleeve over his high forehead. “It’s stifling in here.”
Quill said, “I was trying to figure out why Connar would put everyone through the logistical nightmare of defending two castles at the same time. There aren’t two castles that close together that would need defending at the same time. Except...look here. Where do you see two castles that could be attacked at the same time, thus preventing the other from coming to its neighbor’s defense?”
Lineas and Vanadei crouched obediently over the map, one red head and one dark.
“Halivayir and Tyavayir are fairly close, but there are now regular patrols up that spine of forested hills behind them, that could be called in as reinforcement,” Vanadei said.
Lineas added, “There’s Tenthen, the capital of Algaravayir, near enough to Marthdavan, both very small castles in the middle of farmland. Neither is a city like Ku Halir. Hills between them.”
“Look again,” Quill said gently. Softly. “Wider range.”
Lineas’s gaze worked rapidly over the familiar markings on the map. The closest castles to one another were in the middle of the kingdom, far from where any invader—
“Shit,” Vanadei muttered, white-lipped. “No. No chance.”
Quill bent down and swept his hand over the north shore, from Andahi to Trad Varadhe and back again. The two harbor-cities were not that far from one another.
“No chance, right?” Quill asked. “I’m putting two and two together and getting twenty-two, right?”
Lineas said, “I still don’t get it.”
Vanadei wordlessly traced his forefinger from the royal city up through Olavayir, to the Andahi Pass, then right, to Trad Varadhe. And from there in an oval along Idego’s mountainous border.
Lineas’s
brow furrowed. “You think Connar will have to defend Lorgi Idego?”
“Not defend.” Vanadei thumped his fist lightly on the table. “Attack.”
“That’s impossible.” Lineas spoke fast, as if urgency could banish the idea. “We’ve had no trouble from them, ever. Quill, you were saying a few days ago that your Uncle Vanda helps keep relations friendly. Why would Connar attack the Idegans?”
“To reunite the kingdom,” Vanadei said. His voice sharpened with irony on the word reunite.
In the distance, the departing thunder boomed. Outside the open window, rain hissed in a cataract.
Quill rolled up the map again, speaking fast. “We already know he’s been sending out his own runners, Jethren’s ferrets. He has to know that the Bar Regren have been attacking Andahi since the first thaw of spring. He surely knows that Prince Cama wants to take the Nob, and drive the Bar Regren out to sea for good.”
“But he would have just found that out,” Vanadei argued. “He doesn’t have golden notecases. He couldn’t have known about Prince Cama begging to lead a force against the Bar Regren. You just heard it by magic notecase.”
Quill stared down at the rolled map. “But all that is predictable. What if,” he said, “that was Connar’s plan all along?”
“What?” Vanadei’s and Lineas’s voices clashed, and were drowned by another rumble of thunder.
“I kept wondering why, after all these years of treaty, he’d let the Nob go. Especially when everyone knew the moment we didn’t send the silver up there, the Bar Regren among the locals would sell out the rest of their neighbors in a heartbeat, especially if they saw the Marlovan guards depart.”
Vanadei said, “After which the Bar Regren would turn their eyes down the rest of the north coast toward Andahi.”
“Which has happened,” Quill said. “But Lorgi Idego isn’t huge. To push the Bar Regren right back up the north coast, then secure the Nob, the Idegans would have to strip their garrisons at the harbor cities down to holding staff. Which effectively leaves them open for an invading army to come up the Pass, while Prince Cama is busy chasing Bar Regren up the peninsula.”
Vanadei pushed his flattened palm away. “Connar wouldn’t. Would he?”
Lineas was rocking on her mat, arms across her stomach. “He would,” she whispered. “I think he would. If he thought he could win.” She drew in a shaky breath. “What should we do? What is....”
She didn’t want to say the word right. It seemed so horribly ironic.
Quill thumbed his eyes. “Before she died, Shendan made me promise, whoever was king, to do my duty as if oath-sworn to someone I could respect. I wonder what she saw, or thought she saw?” He clapped his hands to his thighs. “Speculation. This is —”
And Vanadei quoted, “’Let your choices follow the right road, even if the road seems to be invisible to the world around you.’ The last class she taught, she made us translate that into five languages.”
The three looked at one another.
Quill scrambled to his feet. “I’ve got to talk to Rat. Help me think of some urgent reason for Noddy to send me to Ku Halir.”
Vanadei said, “Should we take this to him? Or to the gunvaer?”
“No,” Lineas and Quill said together.
“Right.” Vanadei sat back, grimacing. He knew Connar hadn’t already discussed it with his brother. If he had, Noddy would have been moping anxiously. Noddy hated fighting. He still suffered from the occasional nightmare caused by the Chalk Hills attack all those years ago, and what he’d seen when defeating Yenvir, as well as Tlennen Plain. Also, Noddy always agreed with Connar, not the other way around.
All three knew the gunvaer would be horrified. She would exert all her strength to talk Connar out of throwing away lives, as well as livelihood, on invading what had been acknowledged as another kingdom. But she wouldn’t win.
And Connar didn’t seem to talk to Ranet. They all knew the two led separate lives.
“I’ve got to go,” Quill muttered.
“What can Rat do?” Lineas asked.
“I don’t know, but I believe he’ll hear me out. And if he laughs me out of the room because I’m so wrong, all to the good.”
Unfortunately, Noddy could be very acute. Finding a reason to disrupt what he regarded as their comfortable foursome, even during a period when actual state business was slack, was far more difficult than they’d thought. Noddy, in his way, had far too many questions, each more uneasy than the last, as though he sensed something amiss. One day, two, then three passed, Quill ever more impatient.
He was debating whether he should risk magic when Victory Day dawned, clear for once, the air pure and clean. The royal family, except for Connar, gathered to watch the academy games held for those left behind.
The first horse race had barely begun when Vanadei, standing behind Noddy, overheard Ranet saying to the gunvaer, “I do wish Braids would at least answer my letters, if he’s too busy to visit. I’ve sent both my runners into Sindan-An, but they can’t find him.”
“He’s probably with Connar,” Noddy said.
Ranet turned to smile at him. “Ah, I didn’t think of that! But Weed just got back, and Neit’s up there as well—”
Vanadei said quickly, “Send Quill.”
The royal family all turned surprised faces to him. Ranet said, “But isn’t he your scribe now, Noddy?”
Vanadei so rarely spoke unless spoken to that Noddy and Ranet were startled. He said quickly, “He is. But we have so little to do these days. And I know he sorely misses riding. Remember, that’s what he trained for.”
Noddy’s brow cleared. “I didn’t think of that. Of course we can send Quill, if he really wants to go.”
“You can ask, but I’m certain he’d thank you for the chance to ride in this excellent weather.”
Ranet looked doubtfully at the thunder line already purpling the western horizon, but Noddy clapped his hands. “Quill never asks for anything. If he wants to ride, then he can take Ranet’s message to Braids. The three of us will manage in the state room, just as we did at Yvana Hall.”
Vanadei agreed with enthusiasm, and Quill was gone before the horse events were halfway finished.
The first night Quill stopped, he arranged for a private room, and with the door locked, used magic to transfer to Ku Halir’s secret Destination, laid down years previous. It was in an old storage room.
He emerged cautiously, fighting against sneezing from the dusty air, so different from the mud of the royal city, and checked around until he discovered that the siege was still very much in progress. Not wanting to risk being seen, he braced for the wrench of the return transfer, and the next day, continued riding north.
The bands of storms that had been boiling up out of the southwest seemed to follow him northward, then passed him, leaving his road adrip. When he reached Ku Halir, it was to find the siege over, the city full of roistering academy seniors.
Quill made his way to the area over the stable where runners invariably were kept. Here he found Neit, the sun-browned smile lines around her eyes crinkling when she saw him. “Quill! I thought they’d chained you to a desk!”
“Everyone was on a run, and Ranet wanted a message taken to Braids,” Quill said.
Neit’s brows shot upward. “He’s somewhere between here and Tlen, last I heard.”
“I’ll get on the road to find him after I eat something,” Quill said. “How did it go here?”
“Great. Well, mostly.” Neit laughed. “The gunvaer sent me to be liaison for the handful of senior girls, but they didn’t need me. I spent most of my time watching, until the runs between Tlen and here broke down, nobody finding who they were supposed to find.”
She paused to chuckle. The room was empty, everyone preferring to leave its stuffy air for entertainment. Quill sank down onto an empty cot, hoping to draw Neit into conversation.
She was clearly ready to chat. She perched on the wooden footboard of the bunk across from his, and sai
d, “Nobody asked me, but I wonder why Connar had them attacking two castles at the same time. Both sieges went really well, but they could have been in different years, on opposite sides of the kingdom, as far as message-running and supply was concerned.” She laughed again. “What’s the need for such complication?”
“Who won?”
“I was only briefly at Tlen, toward the end, when the messages were going awry. Rat and Stick Tyavayir stalemated until yesterday, when Rat broke through. Keth Jethren won both sieges, as defender and attacker, no surprise there.”
“No?” Quill prompted.
Neit snorted. “I’ve known Keth since we were brats scrambling in the mud at Olavayir. The only games I ever lost when I had to captain the enemy were to him.”
“What’s going on now?”
“Half want to have another go, Jethren against Rat, and half want to go home. Until Connar makes a decision, they’re on liberty.”
“I may as well give my greetings to Rat while I’m here,” Quill said. “Where can I find him?”
He’d said it casually, easily, as if the idea had just occurred, but Neit shot him a speculative glance as she said, “He’s up in command with Connar.”
Quill smiled, hands open. “They won’t want to be interrupted. Stick is with them, I take it?”
“All the commanders.” Her unblinking gaze shifted between his eyes, and she said, “What’s on your mind?”
“Why?” he hedged, remembering yet again that most of those commanders were friends from youth, academy mates.
Neit shifted her gaze away. “Stick was talking, over ale. You know, how you do after action. Said they could be running games on attack as well as defense, ha ha.” Her teeth showed. “Then they started joking about who they’d be drilling to attack. Ha ha. If it was old Gannan, everyone wanted to volunteer. Ha. Ha.”
“Ha. Ha,” Quill repeated, and, remembering that Lineas had trusted Neit utterly, he lowered his voice. “What about the entire north shore?”
Time of Daughters II Page 84
