by Melanie Rawn
But there was one other thing. Verbal exchanges had demonstrated to each side that the other’s language was incomprehensible. Without words in common, there could be no communication. Yet the scouts had been tortured. If it had not been for information, it must have been for pleasure.
Tilal gulped down the bitter taste in his throat. Barbarians, indeed.
• • •
Mirsath paced the under walls of his keep, swearing under his breath. How in the name of the Goddess was he supposed to deter enemy advances while he was trapped inside Faolain Lowland? Yet the High Prince had been very specific and it was Mirsath’s duty to obey as best he could.
The enemy had arrived three days ago. Since then Johlarian had spoken with Hollis several times. That Rohan and his family were safe at Remagev was welcome news; that he expected Mirsath to do something about the enemy was not.
They had set up a camp as riotous with color as the enclave of princely tents at a Rialla. Battle banners fluttered in the breeze; he supposed they signaled allegiances. They certainly were gaudy—bright orange striped with purple, livid green on pink, sapphire blue dappled in scarlet. Johlarian, sensitive to color like all Sunrunners, winced whenever he looked at them.
Mirsath winced, too, but not because he cared about the garish hues. He was more interested in the number of different flags and the total count of men fighting under them. Rohan had asked particularly about both. Bewildered and impatient—this had no bearing on how he was going to get out of this mess—he had nevertheless made his observations and reported back through Johlarian. Sixteen distinct banners and over seven hundred warriors. Sixteen opportunities for conflict between commanders, Rohan had replied with satisfaction; seven hundred chances for petty quarrels.
Mirsath had watched the camp, and, as usual, Rohan was correct. There were rivalries here as spiteful as any on the continent, expressed in taunts and jeers when the commanders weren’t looking. On several occasions, soldiers camped under red-and-emerald banners had to be physically restrained from fights with those of the orange-and-purple. It was Rohan’s opinion that despite the discipline they’d shown thus far, the enemy was too uncivilized to work together in a sustained effort for very long. Volatile and savage, evidently viewing war as glorious sport, their successes might make them sloppy or overconfident—preferably both—with a large dose of regional or tribal claims to superiority thrown in. Jealousy among the lower ranks often extended to those in command.
“His grace further says,” Johlarian reported, “that an insult or two called down from the walls might be helpful. Their language is not ours, but he’s sure we can think of ways to get the point across.”
“The point is, what does it gain us?” Mirsath fumed. “So they don’t like each other. So what?” When the Sunrunner’s eyes began to lose focus, he added hastily, “Express that to his grace in different terms.”
“Of course, my lord.” A few moments later Johlarian frowned and shook his head. “The mind of the High Prince is a subtle one, my lord.”
“I don’t need subtlety—I need an army!”
An army was precisely what he was not likely to get anytime in the foreseeable future. His keep was stuffed and garnished for a siege and surrounded by a moat that, after judicious flooding, was obviously making the enemy think twice about an attack. But what kept them out also kept him in.
And Rohan wanted him to hold the invading forces here, prevent them from further advance. How could he do that when he was locked up tighter than a silk merchant’s coffers?
“What does he think—that if we get them to fighting among themselves, they’ll kill each other off and we’ll be spared the trouble of a battle?”
“I don’t know, my lord. Lady Hollis said that there are other matters to deal with now, and bade me farewell. Oh—” He brightened. “She also said that your brother, Lord Idalian, is safe and well at Balarat.”
“At least somebody is.” But he was relieved that the little brother he hadn’t seen in seven years was far from the fighting. If anything happened to him and Karanaya, there would be one last member of the family—to rule over what? Riverport was a charred wreck, and if he didn’t think of some way out of this, Lowland would follow it into oblivion.
He glared down at the camp that stretched all the way to the main course of the Faolain River. Sixteen different banners, seven hundred men. What was he supposed to do, have his archers pick them off one at a time from the walls? What was even more infuriating was that they seemed to be taking their ease, in no hurry to demolish his castle as they had done to Gilad Seahold. If they were smart, they’d march around him into the Desert before the rains began. The river already swelled with runoff from the north, where autumn storms had struck Princemarch and blanketed the upper Veresch in snow. The moat rose higher daily. Soon the Faolain would be impassable and they would have to attack in the Desert with what soldiers were already there. Still, he supposed the force that had taken Radzyn was large enough to take Remagev, too, possibly even Stronghold itself. That last didn’t bear thinking about.
“My lord? I beg my lord’s pardon—” One of the kitchen boys, promoted to page and very much on his new dignity, bowed with every other word.
“Yes, what is it now?” Mirsath asked wearily.
“My lord, five of the enemy are riding to the north wall, my lord.”
He gave a short laugh. “Perhaps they plan to surrender.”
The boy answered seriously, “I don’t think so, my lord,” and Mirsath gritted his teeth.
“Fetch Lady Karanaya at once.” He beckoned to the Sunrunner and three archers and strode to the wall.
“Athri of Faolain Lowland!”
Mirsath gave a violent start. The shout was in his own language, not that barbarian gabble the enemy shouted up every so often. Five men on horseback—Radzyn breed, he noted angrily—had reined in at the moat. One of them held a banner. He recognized the colors with a shock.
“Athri of Faolain Lowland!” the voice called again, and the speaker stood in his stirrups. “Are you ready to talk sense?”
“I’m listening!” He gestured, and arrows were nocked to bowstrings.
“Have you a name?”
One of the archers yelled down, “You have the privilege of addressing the Lord Mirsath, athri of Faolain Lowland, honored with the friendship and confidence of his grace the High Prince Rohan!”
Mirsath raised a brow at the young man, who grinned and whispered, “It can’t do any harm to remind them exactly who you are, my lord.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t give him my complete lineage. Nicely done. My thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
“Mirsath! So you survived Riverport! And is Lady Karanaya with you?”
“By Lord Andry’s ten rings,” Johlarian whispered at Mirsath’s side. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Mirsath, what’s going on?” Karanaya demanded, hurrying up to them. “Who is that, and why does he know our names?”
“It’s Patwin of Catha Heights,” he told her. “As for why he’s here . . . .”
“Captive?” Johlarian guessed. “Under duress, with his daughters as hostages?”
“Let’s find out. Lord Patwin! You may approach my walls along the causeway! Alone!”
After a brief conference down below, Patwin rode forward on his Radzyn bay. Mirsath, Karanaya, Johlarian, and the archers moved to the narrow balcony above the gatehouse. A solid wall behind and waist-high crenellations in front, the balcony had been built for the family’s appearances during festivals and the New Year Holiday. The last time Mirsath had stood here, it had been hung with banners and garlanded with flowers in honor of this spring’s visit by the High Prince and High Princess. The people of Faolain Lowland had gathered outside to cheer them, then entered the gates for the solemnity of a law court followed by the happy chaos of a feast. A good day, a satisfying day. The kind of day Mirsath vowed Lowland would see again.
“My lord,” he began as Pat
win came within easy hearing distance, “I hope Catha Heights still stands.”
“What? Oh, of course! Not a scratch on it. I’m pleased to see you alive and healthy, Mirsath—and the lovely Karanaya, too.”
Johlarian whispered, “He doesn’t sound worried. Have a care, my lord.”
“Hush.” To Patwin he called, “Your daughters are well?”
“Very, and prettier than ever. My eldest girl, Izaea, wishes particularly to be remembered to you.”
Mirsath began to feel a little dizzy. Surely this conversation was unreal, this polite chat that might have been exchanged at a Rialla but was instead taking place in the presence of an invading army. He muttered, “He sounds as if he’s having the marriage contract written up. This is insane.”
“I quite agree.” Karanaya leaned over the battlements. “Why are you here?”
Patwin began to laugh. And suddenly Mirsath understood.
“Haven’t you been listening?” he hissed at his cousin. “His castle is fine, his daughters are fine, everything’s fine. Duress? He’s here because he wants to be!”
Her cheeks crimsoned with rage. “Because they’ll give him something he wants?” Without waiting for an answer she already knew, she shouted down, “What did they promise you, craven? What’s the price of treachery?”
“The princedom of Syr, of course!”
Mirsath pushed her aside. “And they’ll do as much or more for me, is that it? If I surrender my keep without a scratch—the way you did!”
“Naturally there are rewards for cooperation. Why should I see the work of my ancestors in the hands of these barbarians? Catha is the jewel of the south, Mirsath. Could you see it destroyed? Speaking of the south—what would you say to that portion of the Desert—with Radzyn all your own?”
Now he really understood. “With Izaea as my princess?”
“Through my late wife, she’s Roelstra’s granddaughter. I’ve always pictured her as a princess.” He swept one arm out to the side. “Look around you. It may take most of the winter to starve you out—but starve you will, and die, and so unnecessary. Work with the Vellant’im instead of against them, and they will prove generous. Mirsath, don’t you want to be a prince?”
The royal title was the last word he ever spoke. An arrow sank into his chest, the fletching in Lowland’s colors sprouting from his heart. He toppled from the saddle, dead before he slid gently into the depths of the moat.
“Nice shot.”
Mirsath handed the bow back to the archer. “Thank you,” he said calmly. “I hope I didn’t hurt your arm when I appropriated your weapon.”
“Not at all, my lord. Once again, it was my pleasure.”
• • •
Word of Patwin’s death got to Remagev that night by the moons. Rohan shook his head and sighed.
“It was a stupid thing to do, when you think about it. Mirsath should have agreed.”
Sioned blinked at him across the taze that had been brought to their room. “So we’d have a spy in the enemy camp? Do you honestly think Mirsath capable of that much concentrated deceit?”
“Well, not Mirsath,” Chay put in. “Karanaya, maybe.”
“That’s not what I was talking about,” Rohan replied. “I meant that anyone looking at it rationally would consider Mirsath an utter fool. Keeping faith with his prince when his castle is hopelessly besieged? When accepting the offer could mean a princedom? A sensible man would have jumped at the chance.”
Chay sent Sioned a warning glance and drawled, “Rohan, Rohan—you’ve corrupted these youngsters. They put loyalty to you above their own gain. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
She took up the cause. “You’re right, Chay, it’s nauseating. He’s taught them all sorts of bad habits. It can’t be for his blue eyes or his pretty face. Why do you imagine they do it?”
“Rampant mental disability?” he guessed.
“All right, you two, enough,” Rohan said. “Point taken. Remind me that if—when—we’re handing out rewards to those who secured the victory, Mirsath has earned something special.”
“But that’s the point, you fool,” Chay told him, completely serious now. “Do you think he expects a reward?”
“Rohan, you’re thinking like a barbarian,” Sioned added. “You don’t have to pay them for their loyalty, my love. The coin you bought them with has nothing to do with gold at all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Prince Volog, watching the course of a second battle for New Raetia laughed until his sides hurt. “Those idiots! What do they think women are—too delicate to be a threat or too stupid to give them a decent fight?”
His squire grinned back at him. “Whichever, my lord—our ‘delicate’ ladies are scything through them like spring wheat. What do you say—shall we pad all the armor so they face a whole host of women?”
The old man laughed so hard he had to sit down. “Oh, I can just see your grandsire! Chaynal of Radzyn Keep, with breasts beneath his breastplate! Rohannon, you have a wicked mind!”
They paced the upper walls of the keep, Volog leaning heavily on Rohannon’s strong arm, and observed the battle with growing glee. By midafternoon it was amply evident that though the enemy finally condescended to cross swords with women as well as men, they would not be combing their beards in New Raetia’s mirrors this night. Volog laughed again as they were driven back onto the beaches and into their longboats. But when he turned to Rohannon, his eyes were cold and grim.
“Bring me an accounting of their dead as soon as it’s available,” he ordered. “I want to know that Latham and Hevatia are avenged.”
“Yes, my lord.” Rohannon lent his arm to his aged lord as they descended the winding stairs. He didn’t like the flush in the old man’s cheeks, or the tremor in his hands. But at least he had roused from the shock of his son’s death, and no longer sat staring dully at the fire. “They’ve tried twice to take us and failed twice. Do you think they’ll need another lesson?”
Volog eyed him. “What you’re saying is, if they do, can you help teach it? Don’t think I don’t know how it chafes you, escorting an old man around while others your age do the fighting. You’re more use to me at my side, Rohannon.”
“As you wish, my lord.” He suppressed a sigh, then smiled. “Besides, my father and grandfather would never let you hear the end of it if I so much as stubbed my toe!”
The old prince’s eyes twinkled. “What a value we place on ourselves, young lordling! Had you considered what they’d say to you if it was my toe?”
“Not a word. They’d flay me alive and leave me for dragon food!”
Grateful that he had made Volog laugh, he hoped the number of enemy dead would be sufficient to ease the old man’s grief. Somehow he doubted it. How horrible it must be to outlive one’s children. Only Alasen of Volog’s two sons and two daughters was still living. Birani had died of a wasting sickness years ago, Volnaya in a shipwreck a few years after that, and now Latham was gone. Surely no pile of enemy casualties, no matter how high, could make up for losing his last surviving son.
Volog’s page would keep watch over sleep the prince desperately needed, so Rohannon’s time was his own. He climbed up to the curtain wall in time to see the end of the battle. As the surviving enemy rowed hard for the ships anchored off New Raetia, he couldn’t help wishing that this had been a year for him to be Arlis’ squire instead of Volog’s. He was traded between New Raetia and Zaldivar the way Arlis himself had been, the way Riyan had divided his time between being Prince Chale’s squire and training in Sunrunner arts under Lady Andrade. Not that Rohannon would be going to Goddess Keep. It wasn’t that his father hated Andry; it was just that no one ever mentioned his name.
The theory behind Rohannon’s back-and-forth education was that what he didn’t learn at one place, he would learn at the other. The problem was that at Zaldivar he was the squire of a vigorous prince only twelve winters older than himself—but at New Raetia, of a man eight years his own grandfather’
s senior. He admired Volog, but life was infinitely more exciting with Arlis. If the young prince had been here, Rohannon would have been in the thick of the fight.
That would horrify his whole family, of course. But he wasn’t a child anymore. At fifteen he was an expert archer and not bad with a sword, either. He hoped to get his chance to prove it when Arlis arrived with the Iseli levies—any time now, Volog’s court Sunrunner said. Pity they hadn’t made it in time for this battle. Rohannon wanted his share of blood for the horrible way Latham and Hevatia had died. But there would be more fighting. Rohannon knew enough tactics to understand that the enemy must control Brochwell Bay to keep the northwestern princedoms and Kierst-Isel from sending help by sea. But if Arlis carried the fight to the water after rigging his merchant ships for war, Rohannon—son of two formidable Sunrunners—would never see battle at all.
That would please everyone at home, he told himself with a sigh. He believed in Rohan’s ways of law and peace—but he also hungered to prove himself as brave and strong a warrior as his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandsire Zehava. Battle was in his blood. And at fifteen, compelled to watch instead of fight, that blood ran hot.
Rohannon descended to the main courtyard, where he could be of some use. He was unsaddling a feather-footed Kadar mare when Volog’s page tugged frantically at his sleeve.
“My lord! We can’t wake his grace!”
He outran the boy up the stairs. Servants crowded outside the prince’s chambers; Rohannon pushed through and saw Tessalar, Rialt’s fourteen-year-old daughter, kneeling beside the old man’s bed. She looked up as he approached; tears streaked her pale little face.
“I brought taze, the way I always do this time of day, and he didn’t wake. Rohannon—I think he’s—”
“No!” But the coverlet did not move over Volog’s chest, and there was no pulse in the bony wrist he lifted from the bed.
