Sasharia en Garde

by Sherwood Smith

  “Would you leave the academy if you could? Go live in the castle?” Damedran asked his father. “I know Uncle Dannath wouldn’t. He’d hate that, being stuck inland at some poking-small castle. He’s used to being the king’s right hand.”

  Orthan chuckled, muttering under his breath.

  Damedran thought he heard the words—he’s used to being king—but wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Wasn’t sure he could even ask. Anyway they were nearly at the command tent, and Uncle Dannath appeared at the flap, beckoning impatiently.

  The jumble of belongings, maps, papers, swords wooden and real, had been thrust into the far corner of the tent, the folding camp table swept bare. Randart looked up at his brother and nephew, his eyes red-rimmed with tiredness and road dust. “Report.”

  “Just now finishing up with Trevan. Everything laid out, all in order. First thing—”

  Randart waved his gloved hand. “You see to the logistics, Orthan. Where are the other wings?”

  “Probably on the road. I haven’t had any scouts, but we just got here ourselves,” Orthan replied.

  Randart nodded once, staring down at the list Orthan had laid on the empty table. It was apparent that he was preoccupied, that he didn’t see it.

  The silence in the tent seemed to sharpen the sounds from outside: horses’ hooves clopping, shouted exchanges, the thrump of marching feet on the cobblestone road, wagons creaking, grunts and laughs and curses as barrels and baskets and boxes were unloaded at the cook tent an arrow shot away.

  After a long pause, during which Damedran tried not to fidget or to look a question at his father, Randart said abruptly, “We’ll ride the perimeter.” And strode out, leaving father and son to follow.

  As Randart barked orders for three saddled horses to be brought at once, Damedran sighed. More interminable talk about logistics, had to be. He longed to get back to the cadets’ side of the camp.

  He turned his attention that way and caught sight of shoulder-length ruddy curls. Lesi. Talking to Ban! What were they talking about? Lesi lifted a saddle and turned, her gaze meeting his. Her expression changed to the remote one he hated.

  “Damedran.”

  The sharp tone whirled him around. His uncle gave him an impatient look, and Damedran loped to close the distance between himself and the two men.

  The war commander glared at the senior cadets, then mounted up. They rode out, again everyone backing out of the way, no matter what they were doing.

  On the way out of the camp, Orthan talked about the baron’s dispositions. Randart and Damedran only appeared to be listening.

  As soon as they reached an area Randart deemed beyond earshot of the first perimeter sentries, Randart cut him off with an abrupt gesture. “No one can hear us. And no one is to know what we three discuss. Orthan, you are to be commended for your excellent attention to detail. I have had a chance to think over what you flagged, and I have the same suspicion as you do. That female with the firebird banner who fumbled onto the military road is probably Atanial’s missing daughter. It would explain why the pirate Zathdar never tried to ransom her, or use her as a threat or lever in any way. She got free of him, then was, I believe, briefly held by the prince. Escaped him, too, which argues she knows magic.”

  “What?” Damedran demanded. “Princess Atanial’s daughter?”

  “I think so. The descriptions are very brief, but what we do have all seems to fit. It’s that banner, mostly.” Randart snapped his fingers. “There is another matter. Increasingly I find that reports are indicating unexplained lags in messages or messages not being delivered at all. Anomalies between what was sent and what was received. I believe we have moles in our own information relay, and possibly traitors in important places or close to important people. It will be my immediate job to investigate the most flagrant of these. In the meantime.” Randart turned in the saddle to face Damedran. “You are to pick six of your most loyal cadets, and the strongest, and track down the Zhavalieshin girl.” He pulled from his pouch a much-folded paper and handed it to Damedran. “Here’s the best description we have.”

  “But—a princess? I don’t understand. I want to stay here with the war game—we planned this all summer—”

  Randart said softly, “Are you by any chance arguing with an order?”

  That voice, terrifying since early childhood, chilled the back of Damedran’s neck. He was too old to be beaten, he knew that. So the punishment would only be worse. “No, War Commander.”

  “You aren’t cavorting with that Valleg girl, are you? I thought you’d gotten past that foolishness.”

  Damedran suppressed a surge of anger. “No.”

  “The Vallegs are a good service family. Always have been. For generations. I envisioned that girl holding one of the castles in Jora, once we retake it. But if,” Randart said in that voice again, soft with threat, “I thought she was suborning you from your duty, I’ll have her given a dishonorable dismissal.”

  Damedran thought wildly. “Oh, it’s only that we had a wager. About who’d get their patrol flag to the castle wall first. I hate losing. You know how the seniors gloat. We do that a lot, Ban and Wolfie and the rest of us. Wagers, I mean.” That much was true. But Damedran knew he was babbling, as if to cover over his lie. He’d never dared to lie to his uncle before.

  Randart’s forehead cleared. “Well. I made such wagers, too, when I was a boy, but you know, it is time to grow up. Face your adult responsibilities . . .”

  Damedran had guessed right. His uncle, launched down that familiar path, could be safely ignored for a breathing space.

  He had to think. These new orders were a disaster! He remembered vividly the lie he’d carelessly tossed off about that stupid princess. And how Ban Kender had reacted. Maybe he’d forgotten, but no, Ban never forgot anything. Damedran scowled. If only Wolfie’s leg was healed. Ban was definitely second strongest after Wolfie, and far smarter. Well, as for the lie, he’d say he’d been told it. Yes, that should work. Damn lies anyway, they were too much trouble.

  “. . . so I want you and your six mounted and ready to ride by the watch change,” Uncle Dannath said, his tone sharp with finality. “You’ll have to begin at this Three Falls Inn, where she is apparently taking a letter, to discover her trail. If you find nothing there, you’ll ride the road all the way back to Ellir until someone responds to her description. But you will not halt for more than a single watch until you have her in hand. Got that?”

  Damedran gave a stiff nod.

  “You’ll have the king’s sigil, which will get you horses wherever you need them, and supplies. Once you find her, you will bind her against her performing magic. You will contact me, and I will tell you where to meet me. Because she is to be brought directly to me. Only to me. I will be giving you a magical case and the code to use to report, in case those damned mages are intercepting our messages. You are to reveal her identity to no one.”

  Damedran saluted. “It shall be done, War Commander.”

  “Questions?”

  Damedran did not dare, not when the word was barked in that tone, but Orthan said, “I take it this is the king’s personal errand?”

  Randart hesitated. “I deemed it better, after a night of rest, not to tell the king. It will be far better in a number of ways if I have her first. Once I know what manner of person we are dealing with, she can be surrendered to the king.”

  No one spoke. But Orthan pursed his lips when his brother turned to survey the camp, and sent a glance at his son.

  He’s used to being king.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Whammo! Now back to me.

  When I left off, I was gloating over the ease with which I had gotten away from the military people, who had not only housed and fed me for free, but who had checked the shoes on my mare as well as curried her. They’d even cleaned and oiled my sword.

  My gloat lasted, oh, about two hours, as I recall. Long enough for the next rainstorm to move in.

  The civilian roads we
re soon quagmires at every dip. Once again the horse slogged up to her knees in muck, but this time at least I’d found a wagon to follow, and follow we did, until the wagon got stuck in the mud. I helped, the horse helped, but the big, strong workhorses pulling could not get those wheels out of the mud.

  The owners, a pair of sisters, offered me space under the wagon. I took it while my mare joined the two big workhorses, all three animals apparently too wet to bicker. There was as much mud under the wagon as there was outside, but we were out of the rain.

  I will pass quickly over that long, miserable night, everyone gritty and shivering, sharing soggy bits of food, while one of the women worried almost constantly about their baskets of fruit—until her sister begged her, eyes closed, to please stop asking what they were going to do.

  We all finally fell asleep in a kind of exhausted dogpile, waking stiff, creaking, in vile tempers. I rode on, promising to send anyone I saw to help; they perforce had to stay until the mud hardened enough to roll out.

  That week there was a series of rainstorms coming through, nothing ever as spectacular as the first, but definitely enough to keep the road soggy and impossible to travel in, unless you’re a frog. I got lost not once, not twice, but several times, ending up in fields, in a forest, and once in a bog. Then I’d have to laboriously retrace my steps, always watching for signs of a road. I looked for the muddiest, most puddle-washed stretches and was usually right.

  I tried to keep my temper. I did not look skyward and demand What can be worse than this? because my mother had trained me well. Ask the universe that, and it will happily show you just how many ways things can get a whole lot worse.

  I said once, “What about asking ‘What can be better than this?’”

  She smiled and patted my knee. “That you have to do on your own.”

  As a philosophy it probably left much to be desired, but as a rule to go by, it worked. I hunkered over my horse and endured, glad when at last I reached a village with an inn.

  They had a map on the wall as decoration, with all the nobles’ castles and flags drawn in. Ignoring those, I did some mental math and discovered my slogging had probably advanced me all of a couple hundred miles. The key word there, you notice, is advanced. I’d probably covered three times that in false trails and backtracking.

  But I finally reached Zhavlir, and asking around got me to the Three Falls Inn, the sight of which cheered me immediately. Barliman Butterbur couldn’t have run a cozier-looking place, opened in a V, at one side a stable, at the other a garden, big windows, the entire bottom floor golden-lit, the sign a big painting of three waterfalls.

  The owners, a tall beanpole of a man and a tiny woman with wispy hair, were delighted to receive the letter, waterlogged as it was. I explained that I’d done my best—carrying it next to my skin, along with the remains of my journey food—but they hardly stayed to listen, the man was so anxious to read his letter, and the woman to get me to a bath, to hot food and to bed. I cooperated fully.

  Trying to recall the lies I’d told at the first inn, I deflected their friendly questions as best I could. I departed the next day, armed with a carefully hand-drawn map with all kinds of landmarks on it to help me get across the mountains and through the dangers of Locan Jora to Tser Mearsies. Lovingly made—and quite useless. I did try, ever so casually, to ask about landmarks leading to the Bar Larsca Valley, inventing a shipmate from there, but no one seemed to know much beyond the fact that the lands south of the Northsca River were reputed to be wild.

  Great.

  I tried to remind myself that the worst of the journey, distance-wise, was over. I had to cross a river, pass the city of Barlir to the southwest, and there I’d be.

  Well, the day’s ride out of the city to the great bridge over the Northsca was about as pleasant as I’d had yet. Cool, clear, the autumn colors stippling the hills to the west with glorious reds, russets and about ten shades of gold. Even the neon orange leaves were beautiful, like little tongues of flame, highlighting the autumn shades with brilliant color. In the distance jutted up purple dragon-toothed mountains—the border dividing Khanerenth from Locan Jora. I was riding into my favorite kind of scenery, mountain forest, and my spirits soared.

  The road was crowded the last half of the day, as it narrowed toward a massive bridge. I found myself near a small group of early high-school-aged kids training to be minstrels. I kept hearing their voices rising and falling over the sounds of talk and laughter and the snufflings, whinnies, and brays of animals. The voices were high and sweet, the songs complicated rounds and interlocked rhythms that I could have listened to for days without ever getting tired.

  I crossed the bridge sedately behind the singers, looking at the rushing river below, and the sturdy, magic-protected bridge around me. Bridge structure wasn’t much different from Earth, only the materials varied. But those mighty braided chains, the iron-banded timber supports, were all reinforced by magic spells, the wood hardened into something that almost looked like stone, the chains glowing with a dull metallic gleam and no speck of rust.

  The bridge was maybe twenty feet wide, ten feet for traffic in each direction. No one rode over. Everyone walked their horses. Bored warriors in brown waited at either end, on the one side with wheat stalks sewn onto their tunics, and at the far end roses: ducal sigils.

  When I neared the last of the bridge, I followed the motions of people ahead of me, thinking I’m nearly there.

  That lasted, oh, thirty seconds?

  A woman my age and height in brown with a rose waved me over to one side.

  Surprised, I went. I was not about to call attention to myself, not without good cause. I joined the group of people waiting for questioning. Behind me, people showed papers to the woman and passed. Those were all people with wagons or people dressed as runners.

  My crowd moved briskly; the young singers barely spoke to the guards. They waved, laughed, said something or other I couldn’t catch, and ran down the hill to join the crowd of people at the foot of a well-kept road, most climbing into a long wagon waiting there.

  It was my turn. “Business?” asked an older fellow, stout, with a ducal coronet stitched over his rose.

  “Travel,” I said.

  “Join,” the man replied, pointing.

  “Join what?”

  His eyes narrowed from boredom to mild interest.

  I said, quickly, “I’m a sailor. This is my first journey inland.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “The Duke of Larsca’s law states that anyone on the road during harvest time not on king’s business or delivering goods puts in a week of harvest duty for ducal lands.”

  A week! Annoyance flushed through me, and I gauged the situation with a quick glance. Maybe ten of them in various jobs all over the bridge foot. Then I turned back to the man, who was now regarding me with more wariness than curiosity.

  “Oh.” I swallowed, my throat tight. “What do I do next?”

  His expression cleared. “Go down there. Wagon will take you to wherever they need. You get housing and food during the week, and extra over quota gets pay. Your horse gets stabled free of charge.”

  I bobbed the way I’d seen people salute the warriors and followed the young singers, who had jumped into a wagon and commenced a splendid round. A brown-liveried stable hand took charge of the mare, leading her to a string of animals.

  I climbed into the wagon thinking sternly: Lie low, go along. Let’s not get search parties and arrests and descriptions going out, shall we? If you need to, you can always run off. People clambered in behind me, their ages roughly from about fourteen or fifteen, like the minstrels, to maybe early thirties or so. When the wagon was full, someone up front yelled, “Here we go!” and the team of six big plough horses started moving—an empty wagon almost immediately being guided into our place.

  When a rainstorm boiled up over those hills to the northwest and bore down on us, everyone in the wagon helped put up a canopy, laughing and joking, and we rode dry whi
le rain drummed the canvas overhead, cascading in silvery fringes all around. The minstrels sang rain songs, many joined in, and I sat there safe and smiling.

  o0o

  There’s no use in going into the daily details of my career as a farm worker. I decided by the end of the first day to dutifully put in my week without drawing attention to myself. The place was comfortable, the food was plain and plentiful, the work easy. Here was my chance to hear gossip that would be useful. Or at least learn how people were feeling about the government, so I could tell Dad when I saw him again.

  Human nature being what it is, mild fun—though we live for such moments—is really boring to read about.

  The ducal farm was a series of long, low buildings, sturdily built. The crop we’d been chosen for was olive picking. I was surprised there were olives growing here at all. The single thing I knew about them was that a Mediterranean climate was needed. But these olives had adapted over the countless centuries since being brought over. The hot northern sun during the summer ripened the olives, the way the hills were sheltered by the mountain ridge looming to the west apparently kept off the worst ice storms in winter, and so these gnarled, rough-barked trees had been steadily producing olives for centuries, while all around Khanerenth’s crazy history raveled and unraveled itself.

  I learned about olives’ growing cycle and that the right time to pick them is an exact science. I also learned that for maximum value they have to be pressed within a day or so, depending on the outside temps.

  The work was mostly a lot of reaching overhead, as I was tall. I did my picking as far from the others as I could, carrying on long mental conversations—okay, arguments—with Jehan, justifying the distrust I’d felt so strongly that I wouldn’t listen to him.

  But I couldn’t quite get past knowing how very much I’d hate it if he’d refused to listen to me.

  So then I’d try to distract myself by watching the others. That was much more entertaining than my bleak thoughts. I observed the girls noticing the boys who ogled the girls as we carried our bucket loads down to be washed and pressed. Big guys mostly handled the presses, which is why the more flirtatious girls were really enthusiastic about filling their buckets in order to make the trip down the hill. In fact, I am pretty certain that our work boss, a tough grandmotherly woman, deliberately put the cutest guy on the first press, tall, buff, with long curling reddish gold hair and a wickedly flirtatious manner. He always had a crowd around him, after fast, enthusiastic picking.