“Same. But I’ve said nothing, because I didn’t see any faces, except for Dannor’s. And I’m not going to speculate. What I can tell you is, apparently they all got out before the lockdown. I heard that right before I came up here.”
Lineas’s eyelids flashed up. “Ranet, too?”
“No. Still there, according to the report.” Vanadei’s mouth twisted. “Alone. Nobody knows what to do with a gunvaer in this situation. The guards seem to believe she tried to defend Connar. So they’ve ringed the banquet hall as protection.”
Quill said, “Let’s get this over with.”
Quill worried about what he should say if Noddy asked him about what he’d seen in the banquet room, but it turned out Noddy’s mind was entirely on the secret invasion plans, and the Noth assassinations. Quill told him what he knew, adding what David Pereth had informed him.
Noddy sent Vanadei for Pereth, who repeated everything he had told Quill. By then, Danet had woken, and Noren as well.
When someone said that Ranet was still in the banquet room, the entire royal family decided they had to go downstairs. “You come,” Noddy said to Vanadei, an appeal. “Quill, you too. And Lineas.”
Danet, always so capable, was dazed with leftover sleepweed and shock; Sage hovered anxiously at her left, hating how the gunvaer trembled, pausing hesitantly before going down the stairs she had descended countless times before.
Danet felt rotten, but she scarcely noticed her physical discomfort. She was locked inside her head, aware that she had not wanted to believe Connar was lying to them about his invasion of the north, about the Noth assassinations. But whenever she’d tried to convince herself that the Bar Regren had killed the Noths and were plotting an invasion, her mind had always returned to Connar’s reaction at the news of Rat Noth’s death. There had been no sign of anger. Instead, he’d been watchful, even though he’d said all the right things.
Noddy had also sensed this anomaly, and he had been nerving himself ever since to confront Connar. But he hadn’t, because he was afraid of what he might hear.
And now he’d been forced to hear it. Guilt burrowed deeply into Noddy. “It’s all my fault,” he muttered, too disconsolate to use Hand. “I made him be king because I was a coward when Da died.”
Noren didn’t hear, as she was a few steps ahead and didn’t see him talking. Danet slid her arm around her big son’s waist. “Not a coward. Grief isn’t cowardly. It just is.” Her husky voice suspended, and Noddy choked down a sob.
When they reached the banquet hall the guards parted, and they walked in.
The bodies had been removed—Connar to the throne room, where his runners were tending him—the furniture righted, and most of the blood mopped up. Ranet still sat on the ground to the right of the big gilt wingchair, her elbow on the seat where Connar had been before they carried him away. She leaned her head on one hand, the crossbow on her lap.
She had sat there in a sick daze through the night, sometimes dozing off briefly, her thoughts like captured fireflies, until the force of memory jerked her awake again: her hands releasing the bolt. Connar’s wide, shocked blue eyes. The pain, the disbelief, the betrayal in his gaze before all the life, the light, was gone and he crashed face down.
At the sound of footfalls, she looked up and winced against the cramp in her neck.
Then she stood and laid the crossbow on the table. “Noddy, I planned it all. I hired the dancers, and told them what to do. I shot Connar myself. Because of the blood on his hands. Because it was only going to get worse, and no one would stop him....” Her face twisted, but then she made an effort they could all feel, and threw her head back. “I’ll go to the lockup. Whatever you do to me is only right.”
Noddy stared in shock. Until that moment he’d clutched at the idea of unknown assassins disguised as dancers, taking her by surprise as well as Connar and his honor guard.
He choked on another sob, but everyone there knew he would do what he thought right, even if it destroyed him in the process.
Noren’s sudden clap startled them all. Heads turned as she signed, “No.”
She paused, acutely aware that if Ranet had engineered the death of someone Noren loved instead of a man she had worked hard not to dislike, she would probably feel differently, but then is true neutrality even possible when judging human actions?
However. During that long walk she had been thinking over what Vanadei, Quill, and Pereth had told them.
She flexed her hands. “If Connar had ridden north with his army and attacked Prince Cama Arvandais and his captains while they were celebrating in a tent, nobody would have argued that it wasn’t a preventive strike in war. What happened last night was a preventive strike.”
“But it wasn’t against any enemy,” Noddy said slowly, his gaze naked with appeal. “Was it?’
“It was,” Noren stated. “The worst kind of enemy, the enemy from within. Those Nighthawk people conspired in secret, and this is the result. Do you really think that Connar would send assassins against Rat Noth, who he’d known and trusted since they were ten? But Jethren was jealous of Rat, even I saw that. As for Connar killing Cabbage and the lance master, he didn’t do that kind of thing before he had his ears poisoned by Mathren Olavayir’s evil through that Jethren.”
This new idea shook them all. Danet shut her eyes, struggling against conflict: her growing fears this past two years; and beneath that, the incandescent rage of a mother who could not protect her child.
“Yes,” Noddy whispered. “That’s right. It was a preventive strike.”
Danet turned his way, words trying to work past her tongue. Then it struck her that Noddy had given his first order as king.
It was done. She was done. “Whatever you say,” she whispered, too distraught for Hand.
But Noren read it in their lips.
Noddy scarcely heard. He was trying not to look at Ranet, who saw his averted gaze, and anguish clawed her heart once more.
The royal runners still stood behind them. Quill watched (and Lineas that night recorded), as authority settled around Noddy and Noren, a perceivable yielding from everyone there, making them harvaldar and gunvaer as definitely as if they stood on the dais in the throne room on the other side of the north wall.
And so, bit by bit, the royal castle from new king and queen down to the kitchen helpers worked to restore a semblance of order.
The memorial for Connar was held that night, Noddy speaking the few words Noren chose for him. He hated the thought of being king, but guilt forced him to accept that as his penalty. No one could move him from his conviction that he’d failed their father by being weak after Arrow’s death, and thus had failed Connar, who had only learned how to be a military commander—a great one, Noddy insisted, with the ring of sincerity in his voice. But he hadn’t had the chance to sit with Arrow through all the seasons, learning the peaceful side of kingship.
Ranet was not at the memorial. She had gone from the banquet hall to her room, where she drank down the potion Sage brought her, without asking what was in it. If there was poison in it, so be it.
It was only a dose from her own stash of sleepweed, for Noren had seen from her dark-circled eyes the sleepless nights Ranet had endured.
Ranet slept all through that day, and the night.
Early the next morning, Noren went to her. Ranet’s two remaining runners withdrew in silence, worried eyes betraying their anxiety over what was to happen to them, though they had been asleep with Ranet’s girls.
“I came to discuss what’s to be done,” Noren signed.
Ranet gripped her hands behind her back. “Is it prison after all?”
“No.”
Ranet let out a slow breath, then turned a sober gaze to Noren. “If it was anyone else but you and Noddy, I know I’d be in prison, waiting for the jarls to show up to watch me be flayed at the post.”
“Right now, all I can think about is the cost of secrets,” Noren replied. “No accusations here. We all have secrets. But Noddy and I are
agreed, the fewer the better.”
At Ranet’s confused look, she went on, “Pereth told us a lot about Connar that we didn’t know. Mostly how that Nighthawk company had as one of its goals turning Connar against the rest of us. I don’t think even Tanrid Olavayir knows the extent of the Nighthawks’ plans. They prided themselves on secrecy. As for the rest of the kingdom, rumors are already flying outward. We’ll correct them in time, even the ones that will make us all look very bad.”
“Worse than Connar was as a king?” Ranet’s voice sharpened, a brief return of her anger. “He gave the orders to Nighthawk.”
“I don’t want to say anything about Connar right now,” Noren responded. “He’s gone. We have now to deal with. And there are many who believe he was a great king. They probably will continue to, even when the truth of the Noth assassinations—that it was not Bar Regren, or Idegans, but us, Marlovan against Marlovan—reaches the far corners of the kingdom.”
“Do you believe he was a great king?” Ranet asked, her face taut with tension.
“Maybe he was a great warrior king.” Noren’s fist rose then flattened to emphasize warrior. “But, as we all know, a great warrior king has to make war.”
Ranet said slowly, “And Noddy?”
“Noddy has talked himself into believing that Connar was corrupted by Kethedrend Jethren. Whether or not that is true, Jethren is going to pay for assassinating the Noths by losing his reputation as a loyal captain. He will become the traitor who hired the female assassins to kill the king, who then turned on him.”
“And so...what is to happen to me?”
“And so you have to disappear,” Noren replied, her hands firm. “For Noddy’s sake. For Danet’s sake. Every time they see you, they will remember Connar lying dead before the throne. As for the rest of the kingdom, word will go out that we’ve sent companies of searchers on both the east-west and north-south roads to find the assassins,” Noren continued, having contemplated how very meticulously Ranet had planned to protect the dancers as well as the women who had helped her in her bloody work.
Everyone protected except herself.
Two stable hands had confided to a blank-faced Vanadei that they’d know Thunderpup anywhere, the bay horse that carried Henad Tlennen to victory so many times. One of the servants who’d delivered spice wine to the banquet hall whispered to cronies that the tall one with the swinging chain belt around the best hips in the palace could only be Neit; Kit Senelaec’s fluting voice was instantly familiar to a Senelaec Rider-daughter whom Ranet had placed with the bakers; Maddar Sindan-An had vanished with the rest of them.
But those who shared these confidences fervently acknowledged that every one of those women was connected to someone who had been murdered by the Nighthawk gang, and, well, just was just. Those Nighthawk men, keeping themselves to themselves because they thought they were better than anyone else, of course they were a pack of treachers.
So Holly, Noren’s runner who always knew what was going on in the palace almost as it happened, had reported to Noren late the night before.
Noren suspected the dancers were escorted by Henad-Sindan’s archers—if not Henad herself—which meant they would be going over roads only known to those from Sindan-An, on the other side of the hills behind Choreid Dhelerei. No doubt the dancers would emerge at Lake Wened as part of some trade caravan, whereupon they would vanish over the eastern pass to Anaeran-Adrani.
Nighthawk taking the blame is the best justice we can contrive, Noren thought, thoroughly aware of the irony.
Time to shift the subject. Ranet had accepted effective exile, as Noren had expected she would. She raised her hands. “Danet-Gunvaer hopes you will leave the girls. They are still princesses.”
Ranet gave her a pained smile. “And that’s another problem, at least for Iris. She reminds me far too much of the descriptions of the infamous Fabern of a century ago. She even seems to look like her, beautiful, black hair, though I know that’s incidental. I want Iris to not be a princess until she reaches a steadier age. So...if I’m to live after all, I think I need to take them to my mother at the Keriam holding. That should satisfy both conditions. It lies in a tiny valley in Sindan-An, and my girls will learn good, useful lives there, without the—” She had been about to sign taint, but she caught herself; the meaningless title she had borne so briefly had been willingly picked up by Noren. And she would be excellent. “—the expectations of titles.”
Tears filled Ranet’s eyes. She smiled crookedly. “I know Danet-Gunvaer will hate it, and I half-wish I could leave them with her. But they’ll be back to see her, I promise. In the meantime, she’ll have Bunny’s baby close by, and of course you and Noddy are still young. Surely you’ll have children.”
As always, Noren accepted the invisible knife that Ranet had no idea she was stabbing into Noren’s heart. But that guilt would never be spoken aloud. “Of course,” she said.
“And for that matter, Bunny might remarry.”
“She says she won’t, but it’s early days.”
Their eyes met again, and Noren signed, “You are alive. Not even thirty. Go and make something of it.”
Ranet saluted, palm to heart, and Noren left.
Ranet opened the inner door, and addressed her wide-eyed clump of runners. “Pack everything,” she said. “The girls, too.”
They saluted, flat hand to heart. Meaningless maybe, but how that salute hurt! The last time, she thought, and turned away. She would be gone soon, leaving such things as titles and salutes utterly behind.
She walked out to her main room, struggling to fight down the tight throat of grief, then became aware of movement on the periphery of her vision. Noren had left the door open, as she often did—sound meant nothing to her—and there was Lineas, looking in, puzzled. “I couldn’t find Iris,” she began.
Ranet stiffened. “The girls are with Bunny right now. And...tutoring is ended. We will be leaving today.” A hissing breath. “I guess I ought to be grateful for your telling me the truth....” Her voice suspended when Lineas looked away, the unmistakable sheen of tears in her eyes.
No moral superiority, no pity. Certainly no triumph. All these Ranet had expected. And she knew she would see them in others, as she had in Henad Tlennen and Maddar Sindan-An, who had been utterly convinced of the rightness of their act.
But Lineas gazed back, grief flattening her mouth, as she said, “Please. No ‘ought to.’” She looked away, then back. “Gratitude. Like hope. So strong.” Her thin hands clasped at her equally thin chest and widened outward. “But can become such terrible weapons. When hope is gone. When gratitude becomes an obligation.”
And Ranet said, “You did love him.”
Lineas was about to say that what she had been feeling recently had been closer to anger and even dread whenever she and Connar met. And she could see anger and resentment but also question in him. But she heeded the impulse to rein hard on admitting it; she sensed that it would only hurt Ranet, who had through no fault of her own received only indifference from him.
So she said what she could say, “I cherish the memories of those early days. Though they didn’t last.”
The taut skin in Ranet’s face eased. Then she said, “Do you condemn me?”
Lineas thumbed her eyes. “I...could never do what you did. But I understand why you did it.“ And I know you will carry the burden for the rest of your days.
Eyes met eyes in complete comprehension.
As for Ranet, she had decided not a quarter hour ago to make a clean break, but because Lineas was the only other person who could truly understand her anguish of love, grief, and guilt, she asked, “Will you write to me? “
“I will,” Lineas promised, stepped back, and softly moved away.
AFTERMATH
Nighthawk Company was gone. Those remaining, such as Kethedrend Jethren’s father and uncle, went to ground when word of the Night of Knives began to spread—they absolutely believed that the Idegans or the Bar Regren, or even th
e few surviving Noths, had sent those dancing assassins in a retaliatory strike, and would seek to finish the rest of them off, because that was what they would have done. And so their secrets eventually died with them.
A fresh set of runners went out to cancel Connar’s cancellation of Convocation. Neit became personal runner to the king, with it understood she would continue to serve in various capacities. There was no tying her down to a desk any more than she could be yoked to command.
No one was surprised when Jarid Noth resigned as commander of the castle guard and moved upstairs to the south tower with Danet. Everyone was surprised when Noddy appointed David Pereth to the post. This turned out to be an excellent choice, all agreed—except for his disgruntled older brother, who disliked having his former target catapulted over him in the chain of command. Pereth was able to marry at last, and on his father retiring as quartermaster, he got his wife Hibern—who had spent ten years keeping the ledgers at the city guild house—the position, which she served in for Noddy’s entire reign.
That spring, fewer than half the youths returned to the academy, but Noren and Noddy decided to begin as they would go on. “If they show up, we’ll teach them,” Noren promised.
Noddy added, “And no more beating anyone who’s last. I always hated that.”
The jarls convened at Midsummer to see Noddy crowned as Nadran-Harvaldar. At the time, still reeling from the whispers of assassins and a near-invasion from the north (Was that them invading us, or us invading them? some asked, but no one was ever quite sure), the jarls were relieved to find themselves with an easy-going gentle giant of a king.
But human nature being what it is, suppressed injustices erupted at the prospect of a king who invariably opted for compromise and mercy.
First it was Algaravayir, after Linden-Fareas died that autumn. Adamas Totha declared Totha independent from Marlovan Iasca, citing the Olavayirs’ history of depredations to what had once been Choreid Elgaer, and to the Algaravayir family—which included the murder of old Aldren Noth. The Jevayir cousins to the Cassads declared Telyer Heyas a separate state as well, like Totha, going back to its Iascan roots.
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