He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and nodded, hunger making him less wary.
She knew he would remember to ask how she knew his name—but not until after he’d half-finished the loaf and the cheese. And by then, it wouldn’t matter.
But she wanted to laugh because, hungry or no, he still waited to see her take the first bite. As if a mage might rely on common poison if death was what they had in mind. The imagination of young boys was bright and earnest and endless—but not, in the end, terribly accurate.
Here and there, the magi found men—it was almost always men and boys—who carried weapons that had been prohibited to observers of this year’s Challenge. It was a general rule, although in past years ill-enforced, that spectators were not allowed arms of war; there tended to be too much drinking to regulate their subsequent behavior, and fights between men who had laid out hard-earned and soon-to-be-mourned coin at betting tables across the city became steadily more violent as the Challenge progressed.
It was meant, Meralonne thought, as he pointed out yet another of these men to the four who served him in his duties, to be the test of a true warrior, this Challenge; how could anything but war surround it? Still, he was privately glad that the penalties surrounding the use of forbidden magics were harsher and less riddled with legality than those surrounding the possession of a sword—because it was magic that was his concern here, and he was one of the few members of the magi who was capable of dealing with an enemy quickly and completely. Unfortunately, those magics that were best used to defeat an enemy were not those best used to keep that enemy alive as an artifact for the courts to study.
The sun was cool, as of yet; the dawn had barely shaded the sky, but people were already waiting for the procession that would take these chosen contenders through the city—usually on horseback, although by no means always—to the high city, and from there to Avantari, where the Kings would grant their blessing for such endeavors as comprised the Challenge.
People had been waiting, Meralonne knew, since two evenings previous; the magisterial guards loathed the Challenge season as much as the rest of the citizens seemed to enjoy it. And for the citizens themselves, there was a single genuine reason to crowd these streets, waiting. The contenders were each allowed the choice of one “witness,” and that spectator, granted the would-be champion’s token, was allowed to join the procession, to be literally swept away by it into the high city.
Many of these people had probably been to the high city, for although they were not encouraged to loiter, nor were they to be barred if they could pay the toll. But the only day they dreamed of belonging to that city was on this one, when—if Kalliaris smiled—they would be handed a champion’s token and allowed to walk, freely, across the bridge that separated the rulers from many of the ruled.
There was no way to stop them from gathering. No magisterial guards could have prevented it; not even, he was certain, the full force of the magi unleashed. Oh, they could kill easily enough, but they could not discourage dreams that were, for this morn, more bright and shiny than new gold.
He had seen them gather every year. At first, he was contemptuous of it; he remembered those days clearly, and wondered when they had gone. If they had. Do you only dream of touching greatness? he wondered, as he saw one boy’s beet-red face. He had probably been sitting in the sun for at least two days, holding his place by some miracle that had nothing to do with money, or size, or power. Do you never dream of attaining it?
But of course there was no answer to such a question. The boy would dream because he could dream, and perhaps that’s all he could do. One of thousands, of tens of thousands, he would be passed over by the parade of challengers as they chose—and they did choose—to best suit their own ideas, their own private dreams, the memories, fragmented and challenging, of their own lacking childhoods.
The child’s fair hair gleamed in sunlight, pale as platinum; pale as Meralonne’s hair. Over peeling red skin, it was striking, and he did not realize, until he cast a shadow across that pale wildness, that he had stepped in front of the boy. “What is your name, child?” he asked.
The boy was long in answering, and no parent or guardian stepped in to speak for him. But Meralonne was a mage; he wore his symbol openly, and the story-filled mind of a young boy could not help but understand what the quartered moon meant. He thought the child would not answer and prepared to turn, wondering why he lingered.
“Aidan,” the boy said at last. No family name. Meralonne wondered if he knew it. “I’m Aidan.”
“Have you been here long?”
Gap-toothed, the boy’s smile was still bright. “Three days,” he said. “I kept this spot three whole days. They’ll be coming by here.”
“You are so certain?”
“You’re here, ain’t you?”
“Yes. And yes, they will. Soon.” He nodded. “I must attend my own duties; if I am held up here, they will not be permitted to pass.”
The boy started to speak, and then stopped; he said nothing. Meralonne expected no less. It wasn’t safe to talk to mages, and mages never did want to speak to young boys except for some evil purpose, some terrible fate. Stories said that; you were either a champion or a victim, a hero or a fool. And the boy was no hero; he probably had some idea of the dire consequences of a mage’s notice. Death, something demonic.
Stories. He turned, taking the protective shade of his body away from the young boy’s upturned face. He had not lied; not a word of it. The work was there to be done, and this year it had to be done exactly.
He did not expect to find the magic that he sought, although he was never less than thorough; Evayne had assured him that the last of the kin summoned prior to this day had been found by them. Found, destroyed; sent back to the Hells on the thin stream of their name. A good night’s work; a more satisfying venture than this, this petty magical act of bureaucracy.
But this was the life he had chosen, and he was not certain, even given the simplicity of the fight, that he would choose the fight to live for; it was a warrior’s life.
Sea salt was in the air; there was a time, a long time past, when he had not lived by the banks of the ocean. Then, he had been a warrior. In his youth.
“Member APhaniel?”
He shook himself. “Yes?”
“We’re finished this street, sir, if you’re ready.”
He nodded, silent. “We’re finished.”
Valedan kai di’Leonne rose with the dawn on two scant hours of sleep. Dreams had plagued him, and they stayed with him as he struggled toward wakefulness; he had struggled with no less difficulty toward sleep. Alina was there, to attend; to sponge his back and shoulders, to oil them; to fit him with shirt and the loose pants that were so uncommon in the North. Last, she brought to him his sword.
It was not named, this sword; it had no history behind it, no past greatness upon which he might rest some of his weight. But it was, as swords go, a fine one; curved slightly, and single-edged, but perfect.
“We had no time,” she told him apologetically, “to have its sheath or its grip or pommel redone with the appropriate insignia, but the blade itself, I am told by the Commanders, is beyond reproach; even Baredan himself was pleased by it.”
As very little had pleased General Baredan di’Navarre in the last few days, he took it to be a good sign, and he bowed, very correctly, as he accepted this last of her burdens. Of course, today there was no sword’s test; the sword was, if all went well, a statement, not a weapon. But it was a statement that he would be judged by, and he would make it as well as he could.
Baredan struck the gong in the outer hall. He was certain that it was Baredan because the General was wont to be louder than necessary, and this was definitively loud. Serra Alina’s brow creased, momentarily, as she brought the smile up on her face. “I will greet the General,” she said. “Prepare yourself
, Valedan. The surcoat bears your marks, and the markings of the Leonne clan. The sword, the sun in ascendance. They are finely done, and you may thank the Princess Royal for them; her gift to the man she calls the finest of her students.”
“To the man,” Valedan said softly, as she retreated, “she says must prove the finest of her students, because too much rests in the balance otherwise.”
Alina did not hear the words. He found himself a mirror, rearranged his sword, feeling self-consciously like a woman who preened and fretted. Princess Mirialyn did neither. Nor, for that matter, did Alina; it was as if the Serra had no need to ascertain what was, and what was not, perfect; she knew it, as if instinct beyond sight guided her in all things.
No, only Valedan stood like this, and only now.
“Valedan,” Alina said softly, lifting the curtained door that separated him from the world. “It is time. The men are gathering for the procession in the holdings, and you are expected to join them.”
“Guards?”
“There will be four, including the General.” She frowned. “There appears to be some . . . difficulty with one of the Ospreys.”
He rolled his eyes. “Not today,” he said, through clenched teeth. Then he laughed, if slightly bitterly. The irritation blunted the edge of his nervousness. “Lead on, Serra Alina. I will go with the General, and I will look for you, with the women.” He stopped, a foot over the threshold. “But you don’t have to sit with them. You’re of the North, now, in so many ways. Sit with the Princess; I know she’s offered.”
“I am of the North,” Alina said, “And it would have been my chosen home. But you are of the South, and if I am to aid you at all, I must be seen to be of the South as well.” Her smile was bitter. “And I am of the South. It has not left me, although I thought I had left it many years ago.” She knelt, then, as if to prove her point. Knelt to him, pressing knees, palms, and forehead, into the cool stone, as gracefully, as naturally, as any Southern Serra might, and no Northern Lady. “Fight well,” she said, as she lifted her face from this feminine contemplation of the floor, of his feet. “Please the Lord, and he will grant you what is yours by blood.”
And what, he thought, for the first time but not the last, will the Lord grant you, Serra Alina? What will you win, if I win? He hoped that she had an answer for herself, because he could not ask it; not now, not so close to the beginning of the test, this first test.
He knew, as he turned, that it would not have pleased her to hear the question. And knew, as truth, that it would have pleased her to know that he thought it. Such contradictions were a way of life, in the South.
Baredan was angry. It was obvious to Valedan, and the kai Leonne was fairly certain that it would be obvious to anyone who saw him. Anyone of the Southern delegation. “Let me take this opportunity to remind you that the Ospreys are not suitable as dress guards. Not suitable as guards, not for a man who hopes to achieve—”
“Yes?” Valedan pitched his voice low, lending it a coolness that he did not feel. The word carried. The halls of Avantari hoarded noise as if they were so ancient, and so abandoned, that noise itself was a joy and a company. One word might echo in the heights above, at the peaks of arches and in the shadows carved creatures cast, for what seemed hours if the word itself was an unfortunate one.
As it was, however, the castle was so busy that echoes of old words could easily be lost to newcomers. The General, a man not used to correction, be it ever so subtle, took the hint, but he was ill-pleased.
Valedan himself was not certain that he was overjoyed. “The horses?”
“Readied. You will not find finer horses, Tyr’agar.” Formal, now.
“Good. I will never need them, I fear, as much.” He smiled, the expression as stiff on his face as the neutrality was on the General’s. It had been a long night for both men, and it promised to be an even longer day.
He knew at once, although how, he was not certain, that the problem the Ospreys were experiencing had, for once, very little to do with their legendary lack of discipline. But more than that, he could not glean, because of their equally legendary protectiveness; they were hiding some fault or flaw in one of their own, and short of death—perhaps including death itself—he did not think he, who theoretically held their chain, could pry information about that flaw free.
Primus Duarte stood, armored, armed; beside him stood Decarus Alexis. At their side, or rather, a step back, the genial man that they all called Sentrus Cook, which must be a Northern term of affection. And beside him, the youngest of the Ospreys, the girl. Kiriel.
He hadn’t realized, until the words left his mouth, how oddly comfortable he was with words, with these men. Because the moment he looked at the girl, he knew something was wrong. “What’s happened, Kiriel?”
She flinched; Cook darkened; Alexis’ glance flickered off the impassive side of Duarte’s face. The only Osprey who could muster what it took to treat with nobility, Duarte’s expression never wavered.
“And where is Auralis?”
Alexis flinched, and this time, Kiriel’s gaze dropped groundward.
“Sentrus Auralis,” the Primus replied, “was deemed unfit for dress duty.”
“And Kiriel?”
“Kiriel is as fit as she can be for dress duty,” he replied. His tone set the tone; they would tell him nothing. And he did not have the time, today, to pry. Wasn’t even certain what it was he would pry into; clearly Kiriel was uninjured, and there was nothing about her that he could point to as obviously wrong. But it was there, and it wasn’t until they had fallen in step, two in front and two behind, that he realized what it was; she walked behind him, and he was not forced to control the urge to look over his shoulder with every other step he took.
They emerged into full sunlight; the Lord’s gaze, today, was to be unhindered by merciful cloud, his heat unalleviated, Valedan thought, by the fall of rain. It was not one of the official tests, to cross from Western gates to the high city in full armor, but men collapsed from less. He wondered, idly, if anyone would.
They were met, in the small courtyard by the stables, by Mirialyn ACormaris. She carried, of all things, a large basket; he half expected to see flowers tilting the round wooden lid up. The thought of the Princess with flowers, however, was too odd, and indeed as he approached her, he realized that the basket itself was heavy. She bowed, a Northern bow. “Tyr’agar.”
“ACormaris,” he said, returning the bow in kind.
“If you would do me the honor, I would be pleased to escort you to the West Gate.”
“Today?
“Yes. I am to deliver this year’s tokens.” She frowned; no matter how still he was, no matter how certain his expression, she always knew when he was confused. “Tyr’agar, I’m certain,” she said, in the voice of the drillmaster and not the diplomat, “you remember what I told you of the Northern custom.”
“You may be certain,” Valedan muttered, “but it is with certainty that I don’t remember.”
She did not roll her eyes; but she tilted her face skyward a moment, as if asking for patience. She, called wisdom-born, rarely needed it; it was a gesture, no more. “We ride from the West Gate. You will see the city and its hundred holdings in a way that you have never seen them. They will be lined with men, women and children—and should you desire it, you might choose to give one of the spectators your token. They will be allowed, by the guard, to join the procession; in the case of smaller children, they are often taken in immediately, because the token itself is easily stolen, and likely to be so.
“Those chosen will follow their champion to the high city, and will be invited to view all events, as witness. As proof,” she said, smiling somewhat bitterly, “that there are things that unite us all, be we richer or poorer.”
“And you tell me this now because you do not wish me to embarrass myself there.”
Valedan lifted a hand. “Enough. If this is apology, it is more than unnecessary; if it is warning, it is warning enough. I have the guards of the Kings of the Empire at my disposal; I have the legendary Ospreys—and their name is probably the only name that is known to my enemies here more intimately than my own—I have my wits, my own strength, and the just cause. You cannot protect me from all risks. If they choose allies and assassins as their gesture of good faith, they so choose. It will do them no good.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, and then she offered him something rare: a smile. A nod. “You will surprise them all,” she told him softly, readjusting the basket she carried.
“Them? Not yourself?”
“I? I am ACormaris,” she replied gravely. “I am rarely surprised.”
The ride to the West Gate was not so quick as all that; although no traffic was allowed in the streets of the city, Valedan realized that what the ACormaris had said had been true: The streets had disappeared beneath the feet of more people than he had ever seen gathered in his life. It evoked silence, muteness; he did not have the words to lend dignity to his surprise.
Still, they let him pass; he flew his flag, and the flag of the Crowns, and besides that was well-protected. One or two of the young children—boy or girl, he could not tell—let out a whoop and a cheer; they knew that at least one of the party was destined for the Challenge, and the heat and expectancy of the dawn had brightened, not dampened, their spirit. That cheer was caught hesitantly, but it was caught; it passed before them and behind them, a gentle wave, presaging the day to come.
He was not a devoutly religious man. And had he been, he would not have prayed; it was not the Lord’s way to accept with anything other than scorn an approach of supplication. He had his sword. His armor. His guards. He had his claim, and the battle which would define his life or end it—and that battle, that was Lord’s gift, and Lord’s weight. How many men’s lives were defined by a battle that would, in its turn, take and shape the lives of those thousands that he might never meet personally, might never otherwise touch?
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