Oath Bound (Book 3)

by M. A. Ray

  “They loved her for that as long as they lived. Only half of a dozen had survived that far, and only one made the landing with us. He was killed there while the Princess forced me aboard one of the boats. I would have given over the Prince and stayed with her there, but she had none of that either, and pushed the boat from the dock with her foot. The water shuddered with the earth, and the oarsmen began to pull. Then came the High King, shepherding more of his People to escape, and the raiders after. I think he argued with his daughter; I saw her dark head dip as she climbed into a boat, and what came of her I cannot say, but I cannot think that she lived. Bearach—”

  After a minute had passed, “He died,” Vandis said.

  Adeon sighed. “I saw him fall. The raiders caught up, and they took the last boat for themselves, killing those who rode in it already, but before that King Bearach fought to stop them, and lost his head—and as the blood rushed from his neck, the Mountain vomited smoke and ash and fire, and buried the beautiful Valley of the High Kings. The rest, I think you know… how the magic died with Bearach son of Beagar, and how my People have never been the same.” He paused, and when he went on his voice had softened. “I had to hide young Prince Beagan. Even with the loss of his arm and his beauty, he could have threatened the King at Long Knife by his influence; and so I brought him to the Knights, and Hieronymus took him to train.”

  “Why not you?”

  The tulon tilted his head back, and all the platinum hair tumbled away from his face, striking the breath from Vandis. The eyes, like aquamarines, shone with tears, and the fine bones shaped angles that couldn’t fail to touch some impulse of wonder and attraction and fear all together, otherworldly, fair. He wished he hadn’t asked.

  “I lost Colum that night, you recall,” Adeon said quietly. “And I—didn’t want—I didn’t take another Squire for a decade. I confess, I couldn’t look upon the boy without thinking of everything that had gone out of the world. His father. Colum, true and brave. And his sister the Princess, who would have been High Queen. If she had lived, the world would be different.”

  As far as Vandis was concerned, one monarch was much the same as another, and the idea knocked him out of the enchantment. King or Queen, human or hitul, they all stood on their people’s necks, overtaxed, lived in luxury, and while he didn’t doubt they were busy, he failed to see what it was they really did for the world. He didn’t say this aloud to many people, and he certainly didn’t say it to Adeon now; the tulon sat on his heels, lost to nostalgia.

  “She was lovelier by far,” he murmured, “even than her mother Saoirse. Bright Star, Angharadh means, in the Traders’ tongue. And she was one, and would have grown in beauty had she survived. So young.”

  Vandis felt like a child, sitting there with his feet dangling three inches above the floor in the presence of a seven-hundred-year-old tulon. The young Princess of Shirith—barely a woman—would’ve been at least twice his age. Were they all children to the hitul? What must it have been like for Dingus, shooting up taller by the minute while everyone around him hung static?

  Adeon stood, revealing the beautifully-rendered compass rose on the blue carpet. “Another life,” he said. “Not so very long ago, not really, but it feels like an age. Even so little as I touched it, magic was…” He shook his head and lifted his hair to bind into a horsetail. “It sparkled along the nerves. The closest thing, I suppose, is making love with a partner long desired. Likely why I always lacked the focus necessary to take the academic approach.” He grinned at Vandis, all the melancholy gone. “You’d have made a cracking good magus, my friend.”

  “Could be,” Vandis said. He slid carefully down until his feet touched the carpet. “But I wouldn’t trade away the One I serve.” If he didn’t exactly love his position at the moment, it was his failing; not Hers Who’d chosen it for him.

  Oh, I don’t know, She said. Perhaps I chose you for this to make you ready for your lad, hmm? Besides, all this politicking is so very dull. I’d worry more if you didn’t want to fly out the window, My own.

  I used to like it more, he said while he took the few steps to his chair. There was a time I enjoyed it. Hell if I know why.

  She giggled. You didn’t know any better!

  “Heh.” Guess I didn’t. Are they doing all right over there?

  Just as they ought.

  Well, that’s something. It’d probably be intrusive to ask—

  Try not to worry about him.

  I don’t help him very much when he has the nightmares, but I feel like I should be there.

  He’s having a good time. They both miss you, My own, but I suppose that can’t be helped now that you’ve been hurt.

  Now that I can’t visit, it’s all I want to do, he brooded. I don’t particularly care about the cut—

  I do.

  He smiled. All right. And I told the Watch I wouldn’t leave town. Why did I do that?

  Well—

  “…here, Vandis!” Adeon said. He must’ve been trying to get Vandis’s attention for some time, because he leaned over with one hand on the back of the chair, snapping his fingers in Vandis’s face.

  Vandis cleared his throat and pushed himself higher on the blue velvet seat. At least he could still put his feet down flat. “Right.”

  “So long as you’re still with us.” Adeon circled quickly to stand behind in the bodyguard’s position just as Crown Prince Emmerick swept in, filling the small bedroom with his silk-clad entourage. Vandis levered himself up and took a knee; he didn’t have to wait long before the Prince touched the crown of his head to signal him to rise. He didn’t care for it, but it was better here, with Emmerick, than going before Calphen’s throne as he’d have to in a few days.

  “Your Royal Highness,” he said, and straightened to offer the other chair.

  “Thank you, Sir Vandis. You know how the knees ache in this climate.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Vandis had this much, at least, for the Crown Prince of Dreamport: he wasn’t a fat sack like some of the higher-ranking nobles. He wasn’t thin, but the chair didn’t groan when he sat down, either. He smoothed his brocaded green doublet over the aging paunch—he was older than Vandis by no more than five years—and nodded toward the other chair to indicate that Vandis should sit, too. In my own home, he thought sourly, trying not to let it show on his face. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “You missed the reception last night, Sir Vandis. His Majesty, my father, remarked on it.”

  “Your Highness, I regret that I couldn’t be present. I was injured—”

  “Of course.” The Crown Prince waved away Jimmy, who’d come in with the coffee cart. “The messenger, of course, arrived on time. However, it’s a pity, since the reception was in your honor. His Majesty accepts your regrets and wishes to know if you are quite recovered.”

  You can see it if you want to, he thought, and She snickered. “I’m healing tolerably well, Your Highness.”

  “Sir Vandis, His Majesty wishes you to know that he is still willing to hear you on matters pertaining to the Order of the Knights of the Air at the audience scheduled for one o’ the clock three days hence, and prays that you take especial care in the meantime.”

  “Yes, Your Highness. Ah—” He paused. “I ought to warn His Majesty—”

  “That he won’t like what you have to say?” The Crown Prince chuckled. “Sir Vandis, no one at court finds anything you have to say particularly comfortable, but you’re a necessary little gadfly.” When he took his feet again, Vandis slid off the chair to kneel, burning with indignation at being patronized. He’d meant to elaborate on what, exactly, Calphen wasn’t going to like, but when the Crown Prince was done with you, he was done with you. Emmerick would hear it all in three days anyway—though if King and Prince didn’t already know more than Vandis planned to tell them, he’d have serious doubts about the Crown’s intelligence service. If he were sitting on Calphen’s throne, he’d want a close eye on the homicidal, expansionist maniacs just do
wn the Ennis.

  “I’d best be going. Farewell, now.”

  “Farewell, Your Highness.”

  Vandis remained kneeling until Emmerick had left the room—though with the entourage, it took longer than he thought it should have. Dealing with royalty had always been his least favorite part of the job. He knew his protocol, but wished he could talk man-to-man with, say, Calphen, or a young guy like Angelo of Brightwater, without kneeling on the floor like a good sycophant.

  Titles bothered Vandis on a fundamental level. He didn’t even like his own. Every time he had to remind a Knight he was Head, he got a sting of guilt, but at least he’d earned his. It hadn’t been stuck on him the instant he was born. Probably that was why he’d resisted Marcus’s suggestion that he tell Dingus about his bloodline. He’d earned “Sir Dingus” in spades, but by the time Vandis was through with him, he’d damn well earn “Lord,” if such a thing could be earned. “His Grace” was another story entirely.

  He’ll be the best damned Duke in all of history, if I have anything to say about it.

  Well, you can’t say I haven’t provided you with excellent material.

  I wouldn’t dream of saying that.

  “Back in bed,” Adeon said when he moved to sit down in the chair.

  “I can sit for a while,” he snapped. “Get a grip.”

  “I’m sure Reed will agree with you. I’ll just go and fetch him, shall I?”

  Vandis scowled. “Why does everyone keep playing the Reed card?”

  Adeon beamed. “Because he’s a match for you—and because he’ll murder me if I don’t ensure you’re following his directives. Now will you please accept your own value to the Order and attempt to rest?”

  Growling, Vandis flopped face-first on the bed. “Happy?” he demanded, but the pillow muffled the force of it.

  “Quite.” Adeon fell to unlacing his boots.

  “Well, bully for you,” he muttered.

  Doctor Kuskov

  Fort Rule, Section Two (Medical); the main ward

  The newest candidate for head physician was long and spindly all over. He had graying brown hair that stuck up in a cowlick and the ugliest face Krakus had ever seen: a tiny chin that receded behind a massive overbite full of big, uneven teeth, a projecting broad triangle of a nose, and a hairline that had seen better days. But his eyes, the color of a frog, held an expression of permanent, kind concern; and his voice came gently from his bobbing, protuberant larynx.

  Those muddy-green eyes swept the ward, a long, low building filled wall to wall with beds, except for a table and chairs at the back that served as a duty station for the medics and nurses. It bustled, and that was about all Krakus could say for it. It smelled sick: old blood and fresh; sweat; misery. There were only a few small windows to let in the light, and torches spat fitfully, almost as if they struggled against the dim. The back end was given over entirely to a massive hearth, and even now, at the height of summer, it blazed, so that as Krakus and Doctor Kuskov walked down one of the two aisles of beds, the heat grew more and more stifling, bringing sweat to their brows.

  Krakus wondered what the doctor was seeing, his eyes darting from bed to bed, soldier to curious soldier. Some of them greeted Krakus, pleased to see him, and he managed to fit name to face at least a few times. He even managed to smile while his foot landed in—something. At last the two reached the back of the ward, where a lone nurse pushed bread and cheese into his mouth, looking hot, exhausted, and forlorn.

  Doctor Kuskov turned to face Krakus. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said. “I simply don’t think I can take the position.”

  “Why the hell not?” Krakus demanded. “I haven’t even interviewed you!”

  “I can’t work here.” The doctor condemned the whole ward in one sweep of a bony, lumpy arm that terminated in an incongruously graceful hand. “The conditions are absolutely deplorable.”

  Krakus swallowed his temper and looked around. “Well, it’s not exactly cheery, I’ve got to admit that, but—”

  “Cheery isn’t the half of it, Father Krakus. These windows don’t open, do they?”

  “Well, I’m not too sure.”

  “They don’t,” said the nurse, his mouth full of bread, as he stood. Kuskov recoiled slightly from the spray of crumbs. Chewing, the nurse picked up a slate, left his plate on the table, and went off down the far aisle, reading the instructions scrawled on the slate.

  “Do you not wash your hands?” Kuskov cried after him, and he blinked over his shoulder for just a moment before going on down the ward. The doctor turned to Krakus. “I’m sorry. I can’t, I simply can’t. There’s no sink, no pump even. How many do you lose every day to preventable festering?”

  “We can get a sink,” Krakus said, a little desperately. Nobody else had mentioned anything of the kind. “Whatever you want. I don’t know how a sink would help—”

  “Taint in the bodies of patients is significantly reduced simply by the practitioner’s washing his hands. I had the pleasure, a few years ago, of attending a conference in Dreamport, and there I heard a Dr. Westinghouse speak on the benefits of sanitation in medical practice. He has made a study, I believe, of the methods used Before, and while of course not all of them are possible anymore, many of the physical expedients are still available to us. I myself made copies of a few manuscripts before I left the great city, and have found some of the particulars highly beneficial in my own practice. Why—”

  Krakus seized his shoulders. “We need you!”

  “Please, Father.” Kuskov lifted a hand to try to nudge out of Krakus’s grip, but the Militant held firm. “I simply can’t—”

  “What do I have to do to get you to stay?”

  The doctor blinked his frog-colored eyes, shaking his head. “No, Father.”

  “What do I have to do?” Krakus repeated. “Anything. I’ll suck your dick if I have to.”

  “No, no, Father, that won’t be necessary!”

  “I want these people to have the best care. You tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll see to it. You have my oath as a Queen’s man.”

  Slowly, Kuskov ran his tongue over his crooked teeth, and he bobbed his head in thought. He cut his eyes to Krakus’s. “Write this down.”

  Krakus lunged for an empty slate and a hunk of chalk, bending over the table. “Go.”

  “Four large sinks along that wall, each equipped with a pump,” the doctor said, pointing. “Soap. Clean linens at all times, boiled after each patient uses them, no matter the length of use. I want new windows installed, ones that open…”

  And on and on. Krakus filled both sides of the slate, squeezing smaller and smaller letters onto the gray surface. He hoped he could read it later.

  “That’ll be a start, in any case. Are you certain you can do all this?”

  “Damned if I won’t. It might take a little time, though.”

  “The more quickly you have the improvements in place, the more lives we can save.”

  “Right.” Krakus looked over the list. “Seems I have a lot to do.”

  “Thank you,” Kuskov said, and looked around him. “I think.”

  “There’s just one more thing,” Krakus said, holding the slate carefully so he wouldn’t smudge the list. “I have to show you… Well. It’s better if I just show you.”

  He took Doctor Kuskov to Section One. He needed the doctor’s expertise in Section Two. If he couldn’t deal with the kids from Section One—Krakus would have to rethink. If he said the wrong thing, he’d be out on his ass, expert or no. Krakus held his breath nearly the whole way, not that it was far. Please don’t make me throw you out.

  The doctor looked up, up the towering expanse of gates; Krakus followed his eyes to the tiny figure at the very top, Marta, with her pretty blond curls and her pale, pale skin. One couldn’t see her strangeness outright; but she climbed so well, jumped so high, and dodged so quickly that one couldn’t watch her long without realizing how different she was.

  “What—” Kusko
v began, his brows furrowing, and Krakus lifted his eyebrows at Marta, dramatizing the expression so she couldn’t fail to see. She covered a smile with a tiny hand and disappeared over the portal. At least Krakus didn’t need to knock; after two heartbeats, no more, Bill Matuchek opened for him.

  “And who is this?” Bill demanded, on seeing Kuskov.

  Krakus ushered the man in, past Bill, to reveal Section One.

  The Special Units—those who could hear—turned toward the visitors. Some of them rose into the air; some paused in their exercises, fire or lightning fizzling, shields melting away, items lifted by the mind clattering to the ground, and eventually every one of them looked at Kuskov. Krakus did, too.

  Kuskov’s buck-toothed mouth hung slightly open, and his gaze darted over all the Special Units, stopping, resting on one or another. “They’re beautiful,” he breathed, just barely loud enough for Krakus to hear, and took a slow step forward, then another, and another, not even disturbing the yellow dust under his feet as he drew ahead of Krakus. He turned his palms to heaven, as if to catch the Queen’s warm light, and went in among the Special Units.

  As Krakus watched, itching with nerves, he lifted a hand—but stopped short of Danny’s arm. “May I?” his mouth shaped, and only when Danny nodded did Kuskov reach out and stroke the softly-sheening scales with reverence on his ugly face. Danny’s mouth gaped in a silent smile.

  Krakus took a long breath, let it out as a sigh. Kuskov would do.

  Before the Throne

  Knights HQ; the Head’s apartments

  “Where shall I put these, Vandis?” Jimmy asked, struggling into the bedchamber with an armload of gleaming metal.