Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  The audience laughed again. What was the joke this time?

  Ivandred looked around, wondering if he’d missed some action in another part of the stage. No, they were all looking at the servants. Macael watched the stage, a slight smile on his lips, the light reflecting in his eyes.

  “How is that funny?” Ivandred whispered.

  “Secondary meaning to ‘refine’ has to do with taking lovers. It’s directed at some northern prince, who apparently has a rep as uncouth.”

  “Like me.”

  Macael grinned. “You don’t have any rep yet. Here. Just listen.”

  Ivandred did. The play unfolded, not at all like the plays he knew. It wasn’t even like the play he’d seen in his aunt’s court before they left on their journey. That play had been about a historical event, but talky, with little sword fighting compared to the fun brawls he was used to at home.

  He followed the spoken words here easily enough, but what happened on the stage was bewildering. The servants kept asking questions that the unnamed lord answered in a pompous, foolish manner, and people laughed more.

  Then the scene shifted to a palace setting, and there was a woman in a spectacular rose-colored gown, also unnamed, her face hidden behind a veil. Macael whispered that any royals depicted on stage always wore veils, as well as went unnamed. But everyone knew who they were.

  That had to mean they also knew who the various foolish nobles were who drawled obscure things that sent the audience into breathless mirth.

  Satire. Ivandred had forgotten the concept, though he’d once known it. The idea of lampooning contemporary people, events, and ideas by putting words into the mouths of historical characters had caused riots in his own country’s past and had gotten some play-makers flogged to death for treason.

  Ivandred could not tell what it was in those knots of silk braid or bunches of colored ribbon that so clearly identified otherwise unnamed characters for the audience, but he could see they not only knew who was being lampooned, but somehow their manners said things about the characters. On entrance there were sometimes laughs and once a gasp, though Ivandred could not figure out why.

  It ended with the buffoonish lords and servants looking foolish, the favored lords and ladies and servants pairing off, and the veiled princess in rose reigning benignly over all, without choosing a suitor—though she had not escaped satiric arrows shot her way for her wish to display suitors as art on her mantle.

  And afterward? Nothing happened. No royal decrees, no duels, nothing but laughing people and whispered comments behind fans. Names flitted by, too quick for Ivandred to catch.

  Macael said in his home language, “Some of the gallants represented on the stage were in the audience.”

  Ivandred did not ask who, or why they’d been lampooned. None of it mattered. He understood that he was not going to master the ins and outs of fashionable attire, much less the manners of fashionable people, before he met Princess Lasthavais.

  He and Macael walked back across the square in silence. Then Macael said, “Well?”

  Ivandred shook his head. “I need to think.” He left abruptly, as he usually did.

  The next morning, as always, he found Macael’s group in the long cavalcade. The column trotted at a distance parallel to the roadside, like a vanguard.

  Ivandred had been thinking, but he’d come to no conclusions except that he still wanted to talk to this princess, but on his own terms. Or somewhere between his terms and what he perceived as Colendi terms. This land was so strange, and as yet the real princess was veiled, like in the play, between memory and mere conjecture. In this place, with these people, he had no power but that of his hands and his brains.

  Ivandred didn’t see the road curving eastward with its steady procession of beautiful coaches followed by a train of baggage carts and servants in gigs, or the slow stream crossing under a bridge, the cows in the field to the left, a town far to the south. He saw Lasthavais’s dense blue gaze, and even in memory its impact had not lost strength.

  Macael waited, and finally Ivandred spoke.

  “I will ride to Colend, but not jostling with all them.” Ivandred jerked his thumb over his shoulder at two men riding side by side in an open carriage, drawn by four horses in harness, several other men following in another carriage.

  Macael snorted at the sight of the high-stepping animals. “Square shoes on those poor beasts.”

  Ivandred huffed a laugh. Macael had been learning from the farrier, had he? Then Ivandred shrugged. Carriages that wasted four good animals—even if they’d been more wisely shod—to carry one or two, even three people made as little sense as the idea of wearing a rapier in places like inns and withdrawing rooms. Didn’t matter that he’d been told it was ancient custom for escorts to go armed.

  That wasn’t his idea of armed. And no one fights in drawing rooms. But these courtiers dressed differently, thought differently, spoke in a different language that had very little to do with translating words.

  “So what’s your plan?” Macael asked.

  “Ride another route. Horses need a decent run anyway, they’ve been walking and breathing dust off these roads long enough. I’ll go to their Herskalt—”

  “The royal seneschal. No. In Colend, I think they call him the Grand Seneschal.”

  “—whoever keeps the gate. Prove who I am. Ask for an interview, which sounds like it’s as close to their rules as I know how to get. When she gets home, either she’ll want to meet or she won’t. If she doesn’t, we’ll go home.” Ivandred looked around, then back. “Want to come, or stay on this road?”

  Macael’s own countrymen were riding at a little distance behind, talking and laughing. Ever since they discovered the truth about the hair on the helms, they had become wary around Ivandred.

  Macael said, “I’ll stay with my boys. That’s preferable to hard riding. If the princess doesn’t take notice of me, I’ll find another flirt and cheer you on. One of us should win our wager.”

  “Anon.” Ivandred lifted his gloved hand in the longed-for gesture.

  His outrider blew a wild call on a horn, as Ivandred kneed his horse and thundered across the field to rejoin his column.

  “Yip yip yip!” the Marlovens cried, and their horses leaped to the gallop.

  Seen from the open chariot behind them, one moment the mysterious Marlovens were riding sedately in that compellingly strict formation, the next they crossed country with the speed of raptors, the horses seeming not to run through the fallow field but to soar.

  Three of the Roses, riding together in a splendid coach farther back, pressed against the windows. They were like girls again.

  The Sentis heir, driving himself in a single two-horse gig beside Young Gaszin’s chariot, said admiringly, “Look at ’em ride!”

  Young Gaszin raised his hand against the morning sun. He tracked that straight black figure with the pale hair, riding the lead horse, and thought, Maybe this fellow will stand up to that old toad Hatahra, for he was still certain that the queen had banished Carola of Alarcansa to her duchy the day after Midsummer, just to keep her from uniting with either him or Altan and fostering a ducal alliance.

  His friends in the carriages fore and after turned his way, expecting him to make some observation, but he only shook the reins to pick up the pace. He hadn’t made it to age thirty in the court most known for words being used as weapons without learning that opinions were best locked behind your teeth.

  Later that evening, Lasva sat in an inn withdrawing room indistinguishable from all the other withdrawing rooms she’d seen on this long journey. Music, albums, who in Sartor had drawn in whose, and how much. The chatter made her head ache. She sat next to the fire, staring down into blue and red and gold snapping flames.

  Here came Ananda’s voice, tremulous with false laughter.

  “… and Tatia tells my cousin that Icicle Duchess has decided they will spend their autumn devoting themselves selflessly to their eternal gift to the world of art, an
d after that, together give a dance for the wine harvesters.”

  “Poor Kaidas will need some drink, eh?” Rontande observed.

  “We’ll have to ride up. Take some brandy to him, you think?” Jenstiar of Isqua said, laughing.

  Lasva longed for solitude. Why was she so giddy? Her emotions tumbled through her mind like, well, like summer thunder: first the sharp disappointment when the word came that the Marlovens had left the road, then Ananda’s refined torture as she tried to make others as angry as she was herself.

  What could she do to occupy the endless stretch of time? She remembered the scroll. She was looking around for me at the very moment I experienced an internal ping! The tiny, silvery note was startling—I’d forgotten the queen’s scrollcase, though I’d now carried it to Sartor and back several times. The queen had never used it.

  Until now.

  I signaled to Lasva, who retreated to her private sitting room as rain fell musically in a shallow pool outside. I opened the scrollcase and took out the note.

  Lasva:

  I want you home at once, but it must be in secret. Marnda and your scribe must travel as you, and arrive before Martande Day as customary. Chwahir have been seen massing in the mountain passes to the east. Use your transfer token as soon as you have seen to your entourage.

  “… and I’m afraid all our quiet is going to end soon,” Torsu finished at last, as Kivic poured out more hot mulled wine.

  By now they had a comfortable little fiction going, all of her own making. He had reassured her during the delicate days of pique, smile, provocative comment, that this was no dalliance. Nor did he ask questions—such as, “The princess? Returning?”

  No, to answer such direct questions would be telling.

  He said, “I suppose we’ll all find ourselves hip deep in extra work soon, right when the weather is starting to nip at the fingers and toes.”

  Extra work. Torsu’s lip curled. She was so easy to suggest ideas to. You picked the ones both selfish and lonely and gave them what they wanted. Torsu wanted sex outside of the rules governing everyone else, and a sympathetic ear while she complained.

  “I haven’t heard anything but rumors,” he went on, sipping his wine and sighing. “I don’t suppose you have a hint of when we start bracing up against all that extra demand.”

  Second rule: create a sense of “us” against “them.” “Us” being Kivic and the one he wanted information from, and “them” being those he wanted information about. We are the heroes, they are the enemies.

  “Oh, put it this way. By Martande Day, I’ll be stuck upstairs standing around in case Someone decides on impulse that this ribbon or that silk rose or the other embroidered lace is too ugly and has to be fixed on the instant,” she said sourly, looking out the window. She always did that when she revealed something she shouldn’t, as if by not looking at him she could pretend he didn’t hear it.

  He knew better than to repeat it. “Well, here’s to the last days of freedom, or what passes for it here.” He raised his cup.

  She raised hers, they drank, and she frowned. “It’s already cooling off.”

  “That’s because my room is cold,” he agreed. “Better a cold room alone than a warm one working like a drudge, that’s what I always say. I sit here and work on my harnesses, and no one orders me about.”

  “Orders! You don’t know what orders are until you’ve been under the tongue of the likes of Dessaf,” Torsu started, and went on to give a bitter description of her labors.

  There wasn’t much about the princess’s rooms he didn’t know now: who worked when, who slept where, what everyone’s schedule was like, and where they would all be at any given time. Weaknesses, strengths, all of it winnowed out with flattery, sympathy, and pleasure.

  When Torsu finished her wine, she sighed and rose. “I had better go,” she said. “Can you believe bed checks at midnight? It’s Dessaf being vindictive.”

  “Of course, of course,” he soothed, giving her a lingering caress. “But you don’t want to be on the receiving end of another of her artistic chastisements.”

  “Ah-ye, to be avoided.” With that, Torsu gathered her shawl close about her, and he walked her to the narrow stairway then leaned against the door as she ran lightly down and sped over the path behind the vegetable garden.

  Same way she had taken last visit—and the one before. He turned away, tsking to himself.

  Habit was lethal in the spy business.

  Marnda had been granted the evening off. I found her at the other end of the inn, dancing with some locals and staff who had free time. As soon as she saw me she made her way toward me, followed by her dancing partner. “What is it?”

  I said, “The princess has a headache. She wants a scented bath and soft music, so that she can sleep.”

  Marnda wiped her damp brow on her sleeve, her expression unchanging at our private code “headache” and “music”—which meant urgency and privacy. “I have to go,” she said to her partner.

  Second valet to a baron from the north, he rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t work for a princess for a gold piece a day and my own coach.”

  Marnda followed me out the door, where the noise and music diminished. All I had to do was show her the golden case, and her brow lifted. Together we hurried to Lasva’s suite, where she told us the plan, finishing, “Marnda, you’ll carry on as if Emras is me, and give everyone to know I took cold in the rain today, and so I must regretfully decline any entertainments and dine in my chamber.”

  We curtseyed.

  Lasva twisted the ring she wore on her smallest finger, whispered her transfer code, and was wrenched out of the world then shoved back in again, stumbling on a Destination carpet in Hatahra’s inner chamber.

  Lasva groped, found a chair, and sat down abruptly, to wait for the hideous reaction to magic transfer to pass. The ache in her bones passed swiftly, the dizziness dissipated, and she was left staring not at her sister, as expected, but at Lord Davaud, the consort. She stared at his jowly face, his intelligent gray eyes, as if she’d never seen them before. Slowly her wits returned.

  He was dressed formally, his overvest velvet, not silk, his undervest gemmed brocade, meaning there had been a grand ball. “Would you like a glass of wine?” he offered.

  “Thank you. I’m all right now.”

  “Queen Hatahra is attending a play in her honor, but she should be here soon.”

  “The babe is safe?”

  “Everyone is safe,” he said. “Except, quite possibly, you.”

  “Me?” Lasva looked surprised, and for a fleeting moment thought of the Marloven prince. But that made no sense, and she dismissed it impatiently. “The Chwahir, seen in the passes? So said her note. I’m having trouble understanding the connection.”

  “We don’t know that there is one,” came Hatahra’s voice from the doorway, and both turned. “But I mislike the timing, so soon after Alian’s birth. When I put that together with Jurac Sonscarna’s attempt to bully me into a marriage treaty between you and him, and the fact that our ambassador fields far too many questions about you, I think—until we find out why Chwahir are swarming at the passes—the entire royal family will stay here in the palace, warded, and you shall stay hidden in your rooms. Let the world think you are traveling home for the Martande Day regatta.”

  Lasva rose and curtseyed.

  Hatahra sat down tiredly. “Have the heralds been sent?”

  Her consort pointed at the big map on the table. “To each House within two weeks’ ride of the western and eastern passes, which is where the border magic has been crossed.”

  “What about the middle pass?” Lasva brushed the mountains north of Alsais.

  “Even the Chwahir are not mad enough to try that one.” Hatahra gave an ironic sniff. “To get an army through past the magic wards, they would have to slip them across one by one through what I am told is a very narrow passage. I assure you, the massing of hundreds of platter-faces would give cause for complaint by
the people in Ymadan.” She snapped her fan open.

  Davaud said to her, “To all the other northern Houses I sent a herald ordering them to be on the watch. And in your name, a suitable host to be raised against need.”

  “Most of them will probably require the added time,” Hatahra said wryly. “The dukes will hate it and will inevitably cause a lot of unnecessary bustle.”

  Davaud wondered where the bustle would begin. It was his place to command the defense of the city, something that until recently had meant overseeing orderly traffic, maintenance of roads, and peace in city and on canals. Now, suddenly, his royal consort expected him to command the forces being raised and sent to the outer passes.

  Hatahra broke into his thoughts. “Come, Lasva, and see your niece, who smiles all the time now, the innocent smiles of one who demands only love. She is a refreshment to the spirit.”

  Lasva followed her sister to the baby’s adjoining suite, in the old nursery where once she had lived. There before the doors stood heralds wearing rapiers, something not seen at the palace in generations.

  ONE

  OF WHITE RIBBONS

  F

  or the next five days, each morning before dawn, the Grand Herald, Lord Davaud, and the Grand Seneschal met in the latter’s rooms. Their aggregate age was almost two hundred ten years, not a day of which had been spent in any military exercise. The Grand Herald had been digging through all the House Archives to read up on what was actually entailed in the “oaths of support” that each noble swore on accession.

  The Grand Seneschal, who had been chosen by the old queen for his ability to smoothly organize and manage a royal palace, had no idea what the etiquette of defense could possibly be, with the result that he, too, had assigned a squadron of young scribes to go spelunking in dusty old archives, commiserating with them when they emerged day after day empty-handed.