The Orphans' Promise

by Pierre Grimbert

  “I really regret having missed it. I didn’t sleep very well. I saw spinning coins all night.”

  “That’s normal,” the magician whispered to him in a lowered voice. “Imagine that you’re trying to wake up a sleeping muscle. For a while, you might have mind ‘cramps.’ But that’s a good sign.”

  Yan agreed, trying to feel happy at the news. All of this was well and good, but for the time being, he had a terrible headache.

  He tasted the dried biscuits that Rey had haggled out of Raji, and then laid out comfortably on a pile of straw to watch the show.

  Léti concentrated intently. This exercise was the opposite of yesterday’s: Grigán attacked, and she defended. The big man coming at her reminded her of her fight with the three brigands. Those men would have killed her for sport. It would be different next time, she promised herself.

  Grigán didn’t waste any movements. He was content to calmly circle the young woman, faking an attack from time to time.

  He tried four separate times to catch Léti off balance, moving toward her left and jumping to attack her right side. She kept him at a distance with her branch. The warrior hinted at an identical attack, but came back to her left side, a double feint. He had her completely turned around and gave her a small tap on her shoulder.

  “One–all,” he announced with satisfaction.

  “Boo! Grigán, you’re a cheater!” Rey chanted, with plenty of bias.

  Bowbaq added, “Give her a longer branch!”

  Grigán addressed Léti, “You didn’t do half-bad.”

  Léti smiled in return for the compliment, stepped back, and spun her imaginary sword, her friends cheering her on.

  “All right, master Grigán,” she said, imitating Corenn’s intonation. “What am I going to learn today?”

  The warrior quickly improvised something. He still wasn’t used to giving an explanation for these demonstrations.

  “A simple sidestep can mean victory,” he announced, somewhat proud of himself. “Acrobatic movements are tiring and dangerous, and can make you impulsive. Always try to stay calm. Be a master of yourself.”

  “Acrobatics can surprise your opponent,” Rey objected.

  “When she can keep her balance, she will be free to do some somersaults.”

  Yan threw out a mischievous idea: “I’d love to see how you handle yourself, Rey.”

  Rey winked at his friend and examined Grigán. The warrior invited Rey to join him, sporting a radiant smile, which his scar transformed into a sadistic grin. But maybe that wasn’t the only reason…

  “And me?” Léti asked as she handed over her branch to Rey.

  “Watch what he does.” Grigán grabbed a stick. “Take note of the errors you should avoid.”

  “Ha ha! Very funny. If you make me angry, I will stick you through with all the branches in the forest.”

  The two men took position, as serious as their fake swords would let them. Rey launched a few attacks that Grigán easily cast off. The actor then tried a more complicated sequence, but his style of attack was really only effective with the heavy swords of Lorelien nobility, not so much with a branch.

  “Grigán, why don’t you attack him?” Léti asked, very seriously. Her eyes were glued to the two men’s every movement.

  “That’s what I am doing,” responded the warrior, who was only linking together a series of evasions and parries.

  Rey understood that he wouldn’t get the upper hand this way. So he tried various acrobatics, hoping to both demonstrate the value of his comments and to transform his defeat into a comical success. He pivoted in a circle, rolled to the ground, fought from his knees and even from his stomach, flaunting expressions that were more and more dramatic. They all laughed plenty, and Grigán, who could have already won twenty times over, joined the game by prolonging the battle. Rey finally ended it by falling on his own branch and, with a bloodcurdling scream, fell outstretched in front of Léti.

  He stayed laid out as the laughing continued until the young woman came over to help him up.

  “Avenge me…” he mumbled, handing her the branch.

  The scene was amusing, but Rey’s face was terrifying. The actor played it all too well.

  Léti resumed her training with a smile on her face, but she was internally shaken. Rey had just reminded her that any one of the heirs could die soon.

  She assiduously completed all of Grigán’s exercises.

  The rest of the day went by at a leisurely pace. They had been awaiting the Day of the Owl, the seventh day of the current dékade, to meet with the Züu. They had only one more day to wait, but they were impatient for the day when they would learn their fates.

  Everyone killed time in his or her own way. Yan slipped off alone into the forest for a long while, only to come back complaining about a severe migraine. He missed Bowbaq’s demonstration of his erjak powers on Raji’s donkey. Once past the inevitable period of anxiety, the animal had gotten used to the intrusion into his mind and agreed to do a few tricks in exchange for a considerable amount of sweets.

  Rey refused to believe that the head nods and hoof stamps were under the giant’s command. Granted, Bowbaq was an uncanny trainer, but he was also an incorrigible prankster. The actor swore that he wouldn’t let himself be fooled.

  Grigán, who undertook anything he did with great intention, thought about what else he could teach Léti. He didn’t want to improvise his lessons, but plan them so that each one addressed a different and more difficult concept than the one before it.

  The warrior spoke five languages fluently, but neither read nor wrote a word of any of them. He did all of his planning mentally, while running his hands through his hair. Periodically, he would leave the stable to confirm a movement with his curved blade, oblivious to his friends’ curious looks, and then return to his task. Even though he would never admit it, he was very pleased to teach the art of combat, a field in which he excelled, compared to the rest of the group.

  Corenn added a few pages to the journal she had been keeping since leaving the Matriarchy. It was difficult for her to forget her responsibilities to the Permanent Council, even though it had been two dékades since she had even seen Kaul. The Mother made note of their every movement. If things went for the worse, the journal might help explain certain things to those who found it. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be able to help too much: Her promise didn’t allow her to make the slightest mention of Ji and the miracle they saw there. Her writings were therefore intentionally vague, or even contradictory.

  Rey finally managed to get a few of the heirs to play a game of Ithare dice. Bowbaq, Léti, and Yan soon found themselves sitting together, rolling little engraved dice, and listening to advice from the actor, a master of the subject. He decided on the two brothers variation, among the easiest to learn, but Bowbaq still had trouble telling the difference between the elemental shapes, and Yan’s mind was elsewhere. They both gave up quickly enough. Léti then admitted that she had never really liked dice that much.

  The actor risked challenging Raji to a game. Since dawn, the smuggler had blatantly ignored his guests, quietly going about his business instead. The little man had a passion for dice, and to Rey’s surprise, he accepted.

  After a few rounds with no stakes, the two men were soon betting a few tices, which quickly escalated to several terces. Rey had already pocketed the price of his stay at the farm before Raji finally decided to quit.

  Night finally came, and for the third time the heirs went to sleep in the cellar, wondering what the next day would bring.

  Bellec couldn’t believe his eyes when Raji popped into his cellar with not just two nuisances, like last time, but with six guests. Worse, two of them were women. The innkeeper thought that women were incapable of keeping a secret. Which was to say that it was practically the end of his lucrative smuggling operation.

  Raji shook his head helplessly when Bellec looked his way. It wasn’t his choice to be there. He wouldn’t have even come to Lorelia t
oday if he didn’t need to keep an eye on his uninvited houseguests.

  Grigán squashed the smuggler’s complaints and signaled to the small group to leave the inn. He was already in a sour-enough mood about their plans for the day, and wasn’t about to subject himself to another litany of unjustified complaints from the Lorelien.

  Only he and Corenn were going to meet with the Züu at the Small Palace. Rey had proven to be pretty amenable to the idea of staying outside; the danger that he would be recognized by a Lorelien citizen was too large. He had insisted that he would accompany them to the front door, though, and the warrior had gracefully conceded. Some reinforcements for the exit strategy would prove useful.

  After letting Rey join them, Léti had immediately invited herself to join what now had become a real expedition. Corenn had exhausted her arguments to convince her to give up the idea, and Grigán had finally abandoned any hope of getting a word in. He threw his hands up in the air, saying that if there were any other suicidal candidates, they just had to say so.

  Yan looked at Léti longingly, but he couldn’t leave Bowbaq alone. The giant was feeling much better and could certainly do without someone watching over him, but Kaulien courtesy wouldn’t allow it. Anyhow, Yan had something to keep himself busy. Corenn understood without mentioning it that he would spend the whole day working with his Will.

  On this trip, it was Grigán who led the group to the Small Palace—and he did so at a brisk pace. It was out of the question to take a leisurely walk through the city. The warrior was anxious, and as always in these situations, his taciturn side took over, and he fell into a persistent dark mood.

  They soon found themselves near the building. Riders’ Square, so spacious two days before, seemed small now that it was occupied by market stands of all sorts and sizes. Rey adjusted his novice’s robe to better cover his Zü tunic as they waded through the crowd.

  They parted ways when they were a few blocks from the building. If the members of the group were all seen together, Rey’s reinforcement would no longer be a surprise for any eventual attackers. Corenn and Grigán went inside the imposing building alone, leaving Léti and the actor in the middle of the market.

  The young woman couldn’t help but think that she might be seeing her aunt for the last time. The heirs had been through so much together these last few days, and each separation was more excruciating than the last. Especially this time, when the danger was so real…

  “It’s so massive!” she said randomly, trying to hide her worries.

  “You’ve never been to Lorelia?”

  “Only to the harbor. We always took the boat from Bénélia to here, and then we went straight to Berce. It’s the first time I’ve been inside the city’s walls.”

  “And inversely, it’s the first time the Loreliens have seen you. They’re the luckier ones.”

  Léti smiled at this and scrutinized her surroundings while Rey watched the entrance to the Small Palace. Many of the goods for sale at the market were completely unfamiliar to her. But the merchants and the shoppers were even stranger…

  In Riders’ Square there was at least one person from all of the world’s great peoples. Loreliens, of course, but also, Goranese, Ithare, citizens of all five provinces of Romine, Arque, Kaulien, Jez, Guori, Yérim, Junine, not to mention members of the eleven main tribes of the Lower Kingdoms. Eastians were afoot, as well as people from the other side of the Curtain, of whom little was known other than that they often warred with the Goranese.

  Not counting the Züu either.

  Léti suddenly became aware of how vast and rich the world was, and thought that a single life would not be enough to discover the half of it. These last two dékades, even though they were spent almost entirely on horseback, had only allowed her to see the extreme south of Lorelia—the closest kingdom to Kaul.

  Now she understood what Yan was trying to explain to her before. The young man desired to meet people who were different… visit strange places, experience rare things. Previously, she had found this desire a bit bizarre, even questionable, but now she felt the same.

  Yan solely wanted to live.

  But he doesn’t love me, she had to remind herself, which saddened her further. He had not asked for her Promise, and he wasn’t doing anything to stop Rey from charming her. Worse, it seemed he preferred solitude over her company, now that he was spending so much time in the forest, alone.

  She closed her mind to this new wave of pain. The past is dead; the future is dying, as the proverb goes. Only the present is worth your time.

  “Do you see something?” she asked Rey.

  “Nothing. It’s been long enough to assume they got in. That’s a good sign, right? Maybe they are sharing a drink with the Züu, to celebrate the new peace.”

  Léti smiled at his joke, even though she actually felt like crying.

  Why wasn’t she with Yan at her house in Eza, like before?

  The jeleni stationed at the hallway’s entrance stared Grigán down for a long time. The guard was wondering whether he should let in this Ramgrith, armed from head to toe, and whose fierce stare met his own. The warrior made no effort to appeal to the Lorelien guard. He simply waited for him to get out of the way. Under other circumstances, Grigán would have simply ignored the guard and walked right past him.

  The jeleni let out his dog’s chain a little; the canine only needed a few more feet of slack to jump at the warrior’s throat. Grigán didn’t move, even when the dog was close enough to leave traces of its panting breath on his black leather.

  Corenn pulled Grigán back and then went forward. This way of doing things wouldn’t do them any good. She held out a golden terce to the guard, who immediately called his dog to heel. The dog obeyed, but growled at the two visitors as the guard ushered them by.

  Corenn entered the narrow hallway with Grigán following closely behind. They squeezed their way through the other elite soldiers and their ravenous dogs. Being surrounded like this set Grigán’s nerves on edge. He was relieved when they reached the more spacious entry hall, even if it was just as well guarded as the front door. At least in this room there was no lack of space for him to fight back, if it ever came to that.

  “Try not to be so tense,” Corenn whispered to him. “You look like you’re in the mood to start a fight. The guards can tell, and so can I.”

  “There are some Züu within thirty feet of here,” he shot back. “I won’t rest easy until we’ve put at least thirty leagues between us and them.”

  Corenn shook her head and led them toward the scribe at the registry desk, which also acted as the tollbooth. There was a short line of people waiting under the watchful eyes of three jelenis, who relieved all visitors of their weapons. Corenn and Grigán didn’t recognize any Züu among the traders waiting, but the red killers could very well have a civilian employee in charge of such deals.

  Corenn wasn’t carrying a weapon, and the guards didn’t linger on her for long. For Grigán it was a different story. The warrior handed over a dagger, a smaller dirk, and from a much larger sheath drew a Goranese broadsword, which he had brought in place of his usual curved blade. The jelenis suspected him of carrying another weapon concealed in his robes, and Grigán had to endure a thorough inspection in order to convince them otherwise. The guards finished their search with a sigh and a long look at the warrior, disappointed that they hadn’t been able to catch the Ramgrith red-handed.

  The scribe collecting fees was in no hurry, and they still had to wait a long time before reaching his desk.

  “Names?” he asked, listlessly.

  “Adnéra from Mestèbe, and Bahlin from Phar,” Corenn answered, speaking the lies she had prepared.

  The scribe slowly copied the information down in an enormous record book, having Corenn spell out each letter of every name, including the names of the two universally recognized towns.

  “Is it the first time you’ve come to the Small Palace?” he asked, after consulting a thirty-page list.

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  “What is the purpose of your visit?”

  “We wish to meet with the priests from Zuïa, so we can make an offering to the cult,” Corenn announced calmly.

  The scribe and the two jelenis on either side of him stared at her in surprise. Such candor was rare. Most traders claimed they came out of pure curiosity. The scribe suddenly decided not to keep these crazy, or complacent, strangers any longer. He had no desire to meddle in the red assassins’ affairs, or worse, admit to himself that he was, by circumstance, the assassins’ secretary.

  “Well,” he began, with newfound efficiency, “the rules for inside the palace are simple, but I request that you follow them scrupulously. One: Shouting is not allowed. All deals must take place in a calm and collected manner suitable to these honorable grounds. Two: Any scene of violence, whether verbal or physical, will result in expulsion from the palace. Last, and most important: The mere allusion to an agreement capable of bringing any harm to the Crown, its interests, or the citizens of its kingdom, is punishable by hanging. Do you have any questions?”

  “None.”

  “Well. May Dona smile upon you,” he said, dismissing them with the merchants’ sacred saying, all too happy to be rid of the bothersome visitors.

  “Aren’t you going to ask us to pay?” asked Corenn, most candidly.

  The scribe blushed at his oversight, mumbling a string of excuses while receiving an onslaught of mockery from the jelenis and the visitors waiting behind Grigán. Forty gold terces were exchanged, and the Lorelien wrote out a receipt as quickly as possible.

  “I would have preferred a more discreet entry,” the warrior muttered as they made their way to the covered courtyard.

  “You’re never satisfied anyway,” Corenn teased, still smiling about the scribe.

  They walked through an ornate arch and found themselves in the Small Palace’s gardens.

  Although their minds were occupied with other things, the arch reminded them of another one, a much more mysterious one, on the island of Ji.