They hunched their backs to the wind, pulling their collars up to protect their ears from the hail. Chim said, “You oughta know how it is with lords and princes. I hear it’s the same everywhere. If they got power, they get cosseted. If they don’t, they get scragged. Seldom the fair start the ordinary hand gets. He said he doesn’t have real experience, so he didn’t want to be a captain. Not and have everyone double-checking every order behind his back.”
“And so you told me about him to protect him? Or scrag him? Or leave him alone?”
“He’s always been on the side o’ the sailors.”
Inda knew that already, and he knew that Chim knew. So he’d asked the wrong question. Ah. “Nothing was official because . . . they think I might take him hostage? Is what you’re saying related to that message Princess Kliessin sent about me making some treaty or they’ll shoot me on sight?”
“Mmm.” Chim squinted out at the gray-green rollers stretching away to the steel-gray sky. A flicker had caught his eye. As he and Inda watched, three silver porpoises and three mers shot up out of the water, the silver-skinned mers clapping hail with their hands. For a moment the six were suspended against the gray of sea and sky, porpoise mouths grinning, mer mouths open in silent laughter. “Do they even have voices?” Chim asked.
“You’re asking if they’re human. Sometimes I wonder what being human means,” Inda responded.
Six graceful arcs, six dives and they were gone. The waves chopped and foamed, hiding where they’d been.
Inda turned his head, still waiting for an answer.
“You Marlovans have a rep,” Chim said slowly.
“Yes, or you wouldn’t have sent Ryala Pim to get me, and I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I’d be at home, getting ready to ride out with the boys to the banner game.”
Chim turned his way, his old eyes acute. “That was me who sent Mistress Pim, and you might say my own rep rests on my decision. Oh, they know you’re good. None better. But the fact is, some are uneasy, and I don’t just mean old Bitterweed Deliyeth. They afear they might fight alongside you to get rid of the Venn, just to find that they’ve been replaced by another tyrant.”
“Tyrant!” Inda snorted. “I don’t want to—” He frowned. “Do you mean Evred-Harvaldar, our king? Evred is no Erkric.”
“He’s a distant king, and people want him to stay distant,” Chim said.
Inda stared. “But we’re here because your kings all along the strait, both sides, were never strong enough to keep out either the Venn or pirates. I’m here to do both, and ensure peaceful trade.”
“Good. Peaceful trade is good.” Chim thumped Inda on the shoulder. “But first we have to win.”
Scout Frun to Oneli Stalna Durasnir: just sighted off headland at west end of Hanbria a flotilla of ships at extreme range. They look like Delfin Islander ovals—sharp prow, narrow stern, broad midships.
Erkric stared down at the paper. Delfs? This far east? It was a direct flouting of the orders he’d had Rajnir issue to the islanders two years before: No trade with Sartor. Well, they’d pay for their temerity, but it would have to wait.
Erkric waved the paper gently in the hot, still air, and forced himself to relax. His stomach griped all the time, his blood rushed in his ears. So much treachery all around him! Proof over and over, that nobody could be trusted. All people were thralls, they just did not know it. All of humanity required an iron collar for its own good. So when he chose his thralls to carry out his will, he limited their access to knowledge, he assigned tasks according to ability, he used weakness to determine his thralls’ reward.
He needed time. But when one did not have it, one was forced to number tasks in order of need. Twelve Towers and the vanishing wards could sink down the list: good as it would be to arrive home triumphant to a fortress he knew was utterly secure, it would have to wait on the victory.
A victory achieved after Durasnir’s glorious death—and the rescue of the fleet by magic. These Delfs might make it unnecessary to have to plan that on top of all else . . . number your tasks . . .
He smiled. It was wonderful when human greed and ambition could serve him without his having to exert himself.
He methodically shredded the dispatch and flung it out the stern window to tumble in the foaming wake. Once again, proving that thoroughness always paid off, tedious as it was to deflect every military dispatch to his desk first.
When Halvir was smaller, one midsummer the bigger boys asked him to be the dead hero on a shield for a ballad enactment. It was strange to shut his eyes and pretend he was dead while others picked him up and posed his hands and feet and twitched his clothes into place.
It was like that when the Dag came in and whispered words that made Halvir tingle from magic, then said, “Eat. Drink.” The only thing they left him able to do for himself was to use the Waste Spell. Otherwise, they moved him around, then put him down on the bed, or sometimes back in the chair.
And then came the whispering again, and that feeling like snow falling inside his head, covering everything. Even his thoughts.
But he submitted, because it was a test. He never moved, or made a noise, or even opened his eyes. He knew he was being tested, and that meant he could pretend it was a game, like the big boys played. Then everything was bearable. So he did a good job, just like when he was the hero on the shield, and Rigi Hafnir and the others gave him berry tarts with extra sweetened cream afterward.
The snow piled and piled until he fell into dreams again, falling and falling . . .
“Halvir.”
This time when he woke up, he only panicked a little. He lay flat on a bunk. He had a light blanket holding him down, not sashes. They had not tied him up again!
“Halvir, can you rise?”
Halvir sat up slowly. His head pounded, forcing him back down. When the pounding and nausea died away, he sat up more slowly, trying to sneak upright before the hammer inside his head noticed. It only tapped.
“I’m sitting up,” Halvir whispered at last. “But I don’t know where I am. I can’t see. Where are you?”
“Other side of the room. I can’t get up, not without difficulty.”
“Who are you?”
“Rajnir.”
The sun exploded behind Halvir’s eyes. He almost yelled, but controlled himself, then whispered, “You can’t be. You said we’re prisoners. The king can’t be a prisoner.”
The voice made a noise that sounded kind of like a bleat, and the hairs prickled on the back of Halvir’s neck. Was that a laugh or a cry? “Yet I am. Now, I need you to do something for me. I order it.” The voice changed on the command word, and then came what almost sounded like a real laugh, but angry.
“Command me, O my king,” Halvir said, just like in ballads. At least he knew what he was supposed to say!
“Feel your way to the trunk below and behind where you lie.”
Halvir got to his hands and knees. He waited until the pounding his rising caused died away again. Then he got a sense of the roll of the ship. Somebody had taken away his shoes and socks. He slid his legs over and felt for the deck with his toes. He eased down until he crouched on the deck, which smelled of brine and old wood. The smell was comforting.
He felt his way. Bunk. Chair bolted down. Bulkhead. Little table. Oh, was this it? His fingers encountered an enormous trunk, metal at the corners, the surface deeply carved. He ran his fingers over it, finding runes, and a long, undulating dragon. Ships, a sun . . .
“Find it?”
Halvir jerked guiltily. “I think so, O my king.” He scrabbled for the latch. The lid did not want to come up. He braced himself against the side of the lid, and muscled it up. “It’s heavy.”
“That’s the one. Feel down inside. Should be in the front. Wrapped in silk, and then velvet, are my weapons. There is a long knife. It has a drakan-head hilt. Bring me that knife.”
Weapons? Halvir’s eager fingers touched, felt, sorted, wormed down until they encountered the right shape.
He took the knife in its wrappings—the steel was horribly sharp—to the deck, and he felt his way back along his bunk. “Where are you, O my king?”
“This way. This way. This way.” The slow words guided him past a huge table, more trunks, another table, benches, a big chair. Beyond that, another bunk. It smelled sharp, like old sweat and stale food. Halvir wrinkled his nose, then breathed through his mouth as he felt his way up. When his spidering fingers encountered a warm shape in silk, he snatched his hand back.
“There you are. Now, give me the knife.”
The velvet came away, the silk slithered to the deck with a soft chuff. Halvir felt with one hand until he encountered a man’s hand, warm, damp. The king’s hand! He guided the knife into it.
“You had better get back to your bunk, because when they find me, I do not want you blamed.”
“I don’t understand, o my king.”
The king did not answer, because he was determined to act fast. He’d thought it all out. The single choice he had left was death and through that, and only that, could he defeat the enemy, which was not the Marlovans, nor Norsunder, nor the greedy Houses. Erkric had become The Enemy, and Rajnir would deny him the kingship.
But . . . his arms wouldn’t hold him.
He grunted, his heart beating hard from the unaccustomed effort and from the knowledge of what his mind willed. The heart wanted to beat, but was helpless to save itself. I will . . .
But at last will was denied him, or the physical act of will. “Halvir,” he gasped, falling back. “Halvir. Take the knife.”
Halvir knelt on the deck. By the sounds the king was struggling, like in wrestling, but nobody else was in the cabin with them. Halvir reached with tentative fingers, fumbling in the disordered bedding until he found the knife lying loose in the king’s fingers, as the king lay panting, his breath rasping in his throat.
“I tried to lift myself. So I can fall on it. But I can’t hold myself up . . . Halvir. Take the knife.”
Halvir’s own heart began to thump. “I have it, O my king.”
“Here.” The king’s fingers bumped his, then dropped, rose, swept his hand upward. Halvir jerked the knife back, afraid the sharpened edges would encounter the king and hurt him. “Here,” the king said impatiently.
When Halvir cautiously extended the knife again, the king pushed the knife point across his body until it rested, a sharp prickle, just below his rib cage. Halvir was standing on his toes now, half leaning on the king’s bunk.
“Jump up here, so you can use downward force. And make it fast, boy. I have it positioned. All you have to do is push it past my ribs, straight into my heart.”
“No,” Halvir cried, and fell back, the knife clattering to the deck.
Both froze, listening. The only sounds were the water along the hull, whish-whish, and the graunch of the mast at one end of the cabin, reaching down to the keelson several decks below.
The king said, “Halvir. I have to die. It’s the only way to defeat Erkric. If he does not have a body to control as puppet, he is exposed.”
“No,” Halvir squeaked.
“They won’t blame you. Oh, Erkric will, but I am convinced your father knows. He has not looked me in the face since we came home from Halia. He knows, I tell you; he’ll save you. And I think Ulaffa knows as well, though I cannot be sure they aren’t all in on it. But your father . . . I trust him to do what’s right. He always did what was right. Even when I didn’t. He would tell you now to help me do my duty and defeat Erkric.”
“No,” Halvir whispered.
“I command you, boy.”
Halvir rose, then fell back, tears burning his eyes. His chest heaved, his head throbbed sickeningly. “I can’t.”
“I tell you, no blame will attach to you once your father finds out.”
“I . . . can’t. Do that.”
Rajnir cursed him until Halvir’s squeaking, half-suppressed sobs forced him to get control.
Halvir also fought to get control. Should he do what the king said? Oh, but push a knife into him? The king? The idea filled him with such terror and wretchedness his chest couldn’t contain the pain, and he buried his face in the side of the bunk, sobbing desolately.
When he had to stop in order to breathe, he realized the bunk shook, and he heard the king making odd, creaky breathing noises.
“What a king,” Rajnir breathed at last, his voice tremulous, his consonants thick, and Halvir gulped, aching with desolation. “What a king! I haven’t even power over one obstinate boy. Halvir. Why do you not obey? Do you not realize I could have you flying the blood eagle on Sinnaborc for flouting my will?”
Rajnir considered the absurdity of his words, and uttered another creak, far too strangled a noise, and too bitter, to be laughter.
“I can’t,” Halvir squeaked.
“Why not?”
Water splashed the hull, wood creaked, before Halvir said in a whisper, “My mother will hate me.”
“Explain that.”
Halvir thought he had explained. He groped for words just as he’d groped with his fingers in the dark cabin, his mind bumping from horror to disbelief and sadness and fear, and anger, too.
But the king was waiting. “My mother says never harm an unarmed person. My mother says you take a knife to an enemy. And he has to have a weapon. She says war has rules, and the first one is that one. She says, Drenskar is not just the glory of winning battle, it is in keeping our oaths. To you.”
“But if I command you—”
“Not to kill you. I’m supposed to protect you.” The young voice quavered, but the tone was steady.
Rajnir forced his breathing to slow. He had no strength, and little will. I am en-thralled.
Erkric had reduced him to a thrall even lower than his own thralls, who at least could choose to move. All choice had been taken from him except for this one thing. He must die, for the good of a kingdom he had never ruled in actuality, not for so long as a heartbeat. How ironic, that his single true order would be his own death?
“Halvir. If I die, you can get out. The kingdom will be free.”
“I think you should escape,” Halvir said. After all, wasn’t that what the big boys always said in the games? If the enemy gets you, your duty is to escape.
“I’ve tried. I can’t even move anymore. The flesh hangs from my bones. It’s been too long since they permitted me to stand. It’s why I can’t get myself positioned to fall on my own knife.”
Halvir’s insides pinched at the roughness in the king’s voice, hinting at emotions bigger and darker than this stuffy, smelly dark cabin. But Halvir knew what to do. “I can move,” he said. Wasn’t that his part in the games? “I will find a way for us to escape.”
Joy hollowed Rajnir’s heart, just for a moment.
“You can’t.”
“Sure I can. I can move. When it’s dark. I’m good at hide-and-find!”
Rajnir let himself feel again the fierce triumph he’d experienced when he was able to put together Valda’s spells from the inside one layer at a time. Fierce, and bitter. If the boy could find a way to the deck, then Rajnir could get himself over the rail—and drown.
He just would not tell Halvir that.
He said, “I can take the spells off us. But it requires a long time. I cannot measure the time, because I am doing the magic from within. And as I’ve only learned it relatively recently, I have not been able to move to explore, so I don’t know what magic is warding the cabin.”
“If they don’t tie us up again, I can check,” Halvir said.
“They seem to have laid aside the bindings as too much trouble, since we have never moved. We must take care to sustain that belief.”
“We can do that.” Halvir spoke with the confidence of ten years.
“Your brother was like you.”
“Vatta?” Halvir said the name cautiously.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about him? Mama and Papa never do. They grieve for
him, though it’s been a long time. Grandmamma told me so.”
Rajnir felt his way mentally to a new conviction: he must gather some measure of strength to try to protect the boy. His kingdom had dwindled to one human being outside himself. Maybe he could keep the vows Erkric put in his mouth.
Or he could die trying. Thrall.
I will not let myself be en-thralled. “Let me tell you about Vatta. He was the best of us, though he wasn’t a Breseng boy.” Rajnir lifted his arms. His breath shortened, his belly jiggled, his muscles trembled. His arms dropped, but then he made another attempt. Nine-and-ninety times. Each day. You just have to make it to the ship’s rail. “He wasn’t a Breseng boy, being an heir ... though he was our age . . . Dyalf Balandir was the worst of us. That is, he was the handsomest, everyone said that, but he was slow at lessons, and mean . . . He thought he’d be picked for king, see.” Breathe, breathe, breathe. “The Balandirs all thought they were the next house for kingship . . . They acted as if they already had it. But Vatta . . . he was smart. I studied long at nights, just to try to keep up, and I pretended that I’d look at a book and remember it, like he did . . .”
Chapter Twenty-one
LAUGHTER gusted from the open scuttles of Cocodu’s wardroom. Back in the bad old days of Gaffer Walic, this wardroom had been made large enough for the captain to fit his entire crew inside when he wanted to demonstrate his power on some hapless crewmate. The blood-soaked deck had been planed and stained by Inda when he first took it from the pirates. That never quite removed the discolorations, so Inda had put down some of the fine rugs from Bermund to hide them, later replaced by marquetry when Dasta became captain. Mutt added to this spacious, pleasant atmosphere his youth and popularity, drawing the more dashing captains from the independents—Khanerenth, and Sarendan—to meet here most often when they were not on maneuvers.
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