She wiped her eyes, wondering why her emotions were so like a spring storm, as she shuffled back to the central room. It had gained furniture, but nothing was ever going to mask its strange shape unless it was rebuilt, and Tdor knew Inda would never ask Evred to do that. The girls had made mats for her and Inda as gifts, and Evred had given them a fine new table after the crown debts were paid. Maybe hangings? Yes. If Dannor could organize a tapestry-making, why couldn’t Tdor? Only where did you begin . . . and when?
Fareas-Iofre had settled neatly at the table, uncovering the dishes. Tdor lowered herself to her mat, feeling more ungainly than ever. Stupid mats! She shifted her legs in a futile effort to make herself more comfortable. She would not whine, even to herself. “Is a sense of home bound up in childhood memories?” she asked.
Fareas tipped her head, the exact same way Inda did when he was thoughtful. “I think it can be in some. But then a sense of home varies so much from person to person.”
“Was Tenthen your home, or Darchelde, or Fera-Vayir?”
“Darchelde. Until I realized that it was more habit than conviction, oh, about the time all of you were in your teens. I realized I wouldn’t go back if it was offered.” Fareas smiled, her cheeks dimpling. “Part of that was knowing if I went back, nothing would be the same. Some of my sense of home was bound up in my companions, who had all changed as much as I had.”
A sharp twinge in Tdor’s back caused her to grimace and lean forward. “Is mother love the same for everybody? Does it sometimes not come?”
Fareas smiled into Tdor’s anxious face—the same anxious expression Tdor had shown at age five when she worried about whether dogs got their feelings hurt if people called them ugly.
“Motherhood is unconditional love forever, for most,” Fareas said. “Not for all. But I think it’s safe to say for most, at least in the beginning. And most of the time, the child mirrors it right back.”
Tdor endured another twinge at the base of her spine. Could it be—no. Hadand had said you felt your lower belly muscles pull. This pain was all in her lower back, a more intense version of what she felt at the end of a long day on her feet.
“But if you raise them well, that singular love for you erodes in the child and spreads to other people. Other things. The child—I will say a son, as others raise our girls—a boy has to change if he’s to survive. So he looks away from you to friends, and boys at the academy, and lovers, and then to those he gathers around him and to whom he owes allegiance.”
Another pang, much sharper this time. Tdor’s pelvic bones glowed with pain, causing a spring of sweat on her forehead. I already love my baby as fiercely as one can love. “How can you bear it? Their turning away, I mean?” she asked, though she knew it was foolish, that time and gradual change made everything bearable, or how could people survive?
“Because your love will never change. You take whatever the children give you and cherish it, and if the children go away, you cherish your memories.” Fareas’s eyes narrowed. “Tdor, are you feeling birth pangs?”
“No. It’s my lower back.” Tdor drew in a deep, shaky breath. “But oh, it hurts.” A cramp seized her lower parts in an iron vise, and a gush of warm wetness spread under her. “Uh oh.” She strangled a laugh. “Send for Noren?”
As it happened Tdor’s body had done most of its work already, so the baby made his appearance before Noren even got there, though she came at a braid-flapping run. Fareas and the young Runner on door duty (now practiced with Hastred-Sierlaef) cleaned and dressed him. Once Tdor had seen her son, kissed and held him, submitted to being cleaned up, she dropped into a profoundly deep sleep.
Fareas smiled down at her, suspecting how long Tdor had been quietly feeling discomfort. Like Inda, Tdor rarely acknowledged physical ills. I did not raise them that way, she thought, holding the babe close; I taught them to be sensible, to heed the body’s needs.
She wondered as she took little Jarend up into the window alcove and sat upon the stone seat, if she’d modeled that behavior, all unknowing. She looked down at the newborn, who had turned his face toward the light. He blinked, staring in that disconcertingly opaque way of babies new to the world, and a rush of emotion seized Fareas, the ache in arms and chest that for her defined the powerful upwelling of love.
But this is not my baby, she thought. I will not see him grow. I will always love him, but to him I will only be a distant old granddam, possibly of some utility but certainly of no interest.
His arm wiggled, the delicate fingers opening and closing. She bent close and nuzzled Inda’s boy softly, pressing kisses all over his face. He responded immediately, his head jerking as he tried to see her.
I will pour love into you while I can, she thought. Even if you never know it’s my love, I trust it will pool inside you, adding to the well that you will draw on someday when it is your turn to give.
Chapter Seventeen
Jarend-Laef Algara-Vayir, next Adaluin of Choraed Elgaer, was born yesterday. Your mother is here with Tdor. Name Day celebration tonight.
INDA looked up from the slip of paper in his hand, happiness making him giddy. A son, a Jarend! Oh, to be home again.
But he wasn’t. He was the Harskialdna, with this battle between him and any chance of ever getting home again. He tucked the note into his pocket to reread later and bent over the mirror chart.
He noted with a neat chalk mark the landmark the lookout had just spotted. Now they could orient themselves with reference to the sizable detachment of Venn crossing toward Bren behind them, and could in turn report Barend’s approximate position with reference to the Venn, when he wrote to ask next, as he’d already done twice.
“I wish we had eyes in Bren,” Inda muttered to the map, his hand sliding to the locket swinging inside his shirt. Could he write Evred for more details? Except what would he ask? I just want to go home.
Fox walked into the cabin then. “On your feet,” he said, and Inda grinned. Drill really was better with Fox, Inda had discovered. It was worth the occasional numbness and tingles down his arm from his right shoulder to get the best workout he’d ever had.
Fox’s brows rose at the sight of Inda’s hand gripping that locket round his neck. “Are you really bound to Evred Montrei-Vayir that tight?”
Inda dropped his hand and mumbled something too low to catch under the sound of the rain and the working of the ship. But Fox got the gist in the words “wife” and “son.”
Inda’s tone was resigned, not reproachful. As he vanished out the cabin door, Fox paused, annoyed with himself. He was never going to shift Inda from that unswerving loyalty; maybe his gibes were strengthening it.
He followed Inda out and said, “You’ve been leading left-handed. That a whim?”
Inda looked up, blinking the fine rain out of his face. His shoulders dropped just enough for Fox to see that they’d been braced. Yes, it was time to leave the subject of Evred Montrei-Vayir back in Iasca Leror. Inda had not brought it up since his arrival and his relay of the Marlovan fleet idea. Fox was disgusted with himself.
Inda flexed his right hand, hesitant to talk about it. What was the use? He hated whining. “Catches sometimes.”
“Maybe we should have a little left-handed drill, eh?”
Over the next few days, as the variable winds shifted gradually north and more west, Durasnir hoped Seigmad had better winds on the other side of the strait.
A day outside of Bren, Durasnir had drawn in his blockade and all waited on station as the Cormorant lookout reported the scout Cormorant White sighted, just where expected.
Durasnir had hot spice-milk and fresh food waiting, knowing from days of old that returning scouts liked coming back to food from home.
Rain plunketed against the sails overhead and spattered the deck, damping down the seas as the craft rounded to under the lee of the flagship. The two scouts, dressed in the manner of Bren sailors, clambered aboard. They were young, nondescript, and Durasnir trusted them; their (spoken) orders had been
to only use scroll-cases under dire need, so he awaited their report. Erkric would probably be hearing it at the same time Durasnir did, but at least there would be no tampering with spoken words the way Erkric could tamper with scroll-cases.
The scouts tramped into the cabin that Durasnir had to himself again, shedding water at every step.
Byarin sat at his desk, apparently busy with dispatches, his bulk hunched over the work. He flicked a look Durasnir’s way and nodded minutely: Erkric had ordered Byarin to place a spiderweb. As expected.
“I assume I will find a remnant of the Brennish navy waiting for us in the harbor, Scout Adin?” Durasnir asked for the sake of the spiderweb. His blockade had been almost criminally inadequate—yet another proof of how ill-prepared this venture was.
“Not even that. The last of them slipped out during a thunderstorm a couple weeks ago,” Adin said, not hiding his regret. He, too, knew the blockade had been stretched too thin and that its movements had been fairly well reported by the swarm of Brennish fishers.
But others could use fishers as spies.
“Walfga followed them in his boat.”
That meant Hegir was still aboard one of the Bren naval ships as a forecastleman. Again, no magical communication. Walfga was Hegir’s contact or rescue, as needed.
“So it’s surrender, then.” Durasnir had figured on that when no one sailed up the strait to reinforce Bren. However, no one knew what sort of mad plan Elgar the Fox—whoever was using the guise—might risk.
Durasnir looked up, and the two scouts were startled by the bitterness in his face. But his voice was neutral as he said, “Was Indevan Algara-Vayir among those who slipped in and out?”
“No. But rumors were consistent about the rest of Bren’s navy sailing east to meet him.” Adin studied his commander, then ventured a question. “No one of ours in Idayago, where Algara-Vayir was reported last?”
“No.”
They understood one another: Erkric had sent dag “military aides” to capture the famed Marlovan commander. The spies had reported failure—Indevan Algara-Vayir was constantly surrounded by at least a hundred of his followers until the day he just vanished.
Durasnir didn’t have to say anything. They all knew that dags were mostly useless in war, in spite of those rumored death spells.
“What can you tell me about Bren’s available wood?”
“Not a stick but what’s been claimed. Their prince and princess have been fighting over who should get precedence. The navy got its share during winter, in preparation for defense against us, and sailed with it. Guilds have all the rest against rebuilding after the typhoon damage.”
Durasnir dismissed the scouts and began issuing orders for a peaceful entry to the harbor.
A day later his ships ranged in the vast line just beyond the outermost island of the bay. The long, martial skyline looked impressive, and as the ships would be hull down from the spyglass of the inner island lookout, no details of fished masts and repaired spars should be visible to the Bren.
Durasnir sailed to the inner harbor accompanied by his elite squadron of nine warships, every one precisely on station, the Cormorant observing flag etiquette.
Prince Kavna, watching from the highest tower of the palace on the eastern ridge, lowered his glass when his scroll-case tapped. He said to Kliessin a moment later, “Dalm on Island Point says they’re hull down.”
“What does that mean?” Kliessin asked impatiently.
“It means they’re far enough out so he can’t see details. So we can’t see what kind of shape they’re in.”
Kliessin turned on her brother, anger and fear spiking her irritation. “They could be patched with paper and still thrash us.”
Kavna knew how worried she was, and what a terrible position she was in. Their father had always promised he’d step down from the throne before he got too old to think on his feet . . . but he hadn’t. His mind wandered back to his youth these days; one never knew what year he thought he was in.
Kavna said, “If Durasnir’s in bad shape, he’s going to want wood. Look, there’s only nine of them coming in. He expects surrender.”
Kliessin twitched a shoulder impatiently. “Well, we expected spies reporting to him. I just wonder if he’s also got ’em with Chim.”
“I don’t think with Chim,” Kavna said. “Those people all know one another. In the navy? Maybe.”
Kliessin chewed her lip. “So he knows we’re going to surrender, and he probably knows where all our wood is.”
She wished once again that the Venn would attack on land so they could bring their guard down out of the hills on them from behind. Bren’s long, successful history of defending its borders depended on knowing every hill, cave, grotto, and stream. On the ocean, everyone could see everything.
And as a young girl, she had seen these same ships, or ones just like them, sail in triumph through the wreckage of their old fleet to dock at the king’s pier. She had hated ships and the sea ever since.
“I’m going to try to stall.” She gripped her hands together until her rings pinched her flesh. “If that shit Durasnir wants to see Papa again, let him listen to the stories about court fifty years ago.”
Durasnir reached the palace precisely at noon and was ushered to the most formal hall, which seemed largely unchanged from his last visit in the company of his son Vatta.
Kliessin’s first sight of the tall warrior in gleaming silver and gold armor and the winged helm threw her back nearly twenty years. The memory just made her angrier.
Durasnir took in the sword-backed princess in her stiff brocade glittering with gems, her hair twisted up in a complicated knot behind the golden circlet she wore banding her head, and knew that he’d read the signals correctly.
The Bren guards had lined the main road, as if to herd the Venn along. Weapons at the ready, but no word of attack. No word at all, challenging or friendly. As if he and his Drenga Honor Guard were wild beasts.
Durasnir slowed his step incrementally, waiting for the princess to speak. Old King Galadrin was not present, though Durasnir knew he lived. Prince Kavnarac stood at his sister’s shoulder, also dressed in a brocade robe stiff with gems. Durasnir did not remember seeing him when he negotiated the previous treaty; Kavnarac would have been a small boy then. And as always happened—like bumping a bruise—the words “small boy” brought back images of Vatta’s face as he had looked around this marble room . . . Halvir in Erkric’s grip?
He must concentrate. Within a few heartbeats, it became clear that Princess Kliessin was not going to speak first. She might stand there until the sun fell out of the sky, but she would not speak first, underscoring that he was an invader.
All right, he was an invader. “Princess Kliessin,” he said in Sartoran. “Or is it queen?”
“My father,” she replied coldly, “sits in his chamber, counting peanuts. You may visit him and view him if you wish. We cannot make any decisions until he regains cognizance of his surroundings, which he does from time to time.”
Once my people would have forced him to sail for the far shore, Durasnir thought. Mercy or expedience? Was Brun merciful when she bound me to life?
He set that aside. “I am aware that you effectively rule this kingdom, therefore this stalling ploy is ineffective. You know by now that we keep our word—”
“What word,” she cut in, her voice thin, “did you give those Marlovan children out west?”
“Is it children, now?” Durasnir retorted. Brun’s mercy . . . Brun, be as vigilant over Halvir as you were over me. I hope to better end. “That castle was full of warriors, who happened to be women and girls. Trained. Probably better than these fellows in the orange I see all around me, judging from the way some of them hold their weapons. The women refused our offer of peaceful surrender and fought to the last. Are you prepared to fight to the last? Because if you are, we are likewise prepared, and can commence at any moment.”
Her gown shimmered as her hands flexed, then she sa
id, “No. My commitment is to preserving the lives of our people.”
“Then my men will stand down. I will assign a captain to supervise the harbor. You will be given a list of our requirements as tribute, and once those are met, you will carry on your trade unmolested. But supervised through our headquarters.”
“And if we don’t meet your demands?”
“We will take what we need,” he said, the pain from his head shooting down through his jaw. “I encourage you not to put me to that trouble.”
“Inda.”
Fox rarely used that tone, quick and serious.
His partner lifted his hands and stepped away, freeing Inda to roll to his feet. He’d been demonstrating how to turn a defensive fall into an attack as he conducted the drill on the forecastle under the swaying light of lanterns. It was supposed to be Fox’s sleep watch. Inda wasn’t surprised to find Fox still awake.
Inda motioned the ship rats back to double-stick drill and trotted aft to the cabin, working his right shoulder absently. Double-stick drill seldom bothered it, not like grappling or sword work. But that fall hurt. He knew how to land—why did falls on his right side send those lightning bolts up through him like that?
As soon as Inda reached the cabin Fox slammed the door. From the still air, Inda knew the scuttles had been closed. “Something wrong with Barend?”
“No. He’s fine. Reached this headland.” Fox touched a chalk mark on their chart. “Look here.” Fox walked to the desk, where he had the mirror chart spread out and pinned down.
As Inda watched, Fox whispered the words and made the pass. The lights glowed, as usual: patrols along the north side of the strait, a few in the south, neatly spaced, what they called a search net. Rigid lines representing ships on station just above Bren.
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