The White Tree

by Edward W. Robertson

  He nodded, some of the resigned irony gone from his face.

  "Anyone else?" No one spoke up, perhaps knowing she'd handle them as swiftly as she had the others. She pushed out her lips, impressed. "Good. Don't try to assign any slights or whimsical boons to my selections. We're all working toward the same end. Those of you I named, be ready to leave on the morning of the eighth day. Everyone else, you've got your duties here, and they'll be doubled with the rest of us out. Make sure you're prepared." She waited to see them nod their understanding, then set her elbows on the table. "Loath though I am to get ahead of ourselves, what's the latest from the south, Jackson?"

  "Whetton's still the only city in Mallon where we might be said to have gained a lasting toehold," he said. He reached up for his chin and seemed surprised to find it beardless. "Fewer have come back to the old ways than we'd wished. The less said about Bressel the better. The devotion of our loyalists can't be questioned, but their ability is another matter—though nor can it be said they face no obstacles."

  "And the Collen Basin?"

  "There we may safely forecast a more optimistic outcome," Jackson said. "We've taken a number of the outlands and negotiated a treaty that will hold for the rest of the winter. That should leave them free to aid us with direct action elsewhere in Mallon, should that be our course. Olivander would know more about that than I."

  Samarand nodded his way, and Olivander, who'd been lost in his own thoughts since he'd heard he'd be left behind, creased his brow and leaned one elbow on the table.

  "Won't be easy," he said. "Still, with support from Collen, and if Hart's got the sway he says he does with the norren"—here he nodded at the norren priest—"I think a late spring strike through the pass at Riverway would work. It would certainly hearten the locals to know they've got our support."

  "Especially if it comes on the heels of our success at Barden," Samarand mused. "Set it in motion. Prepare for a mid-March march."

  "You're going to invade Mallon?" Dante blurted. A few of the priests gave him dubious glances. Larrimore elbowed him in the ribs amidst the awkward silence. Dante ignored him. "What about the Parable of Ben?"

  "From the mouths of babes," Tarkon chuckled.

  "Oh, that's not even relevant," Samarand said.

  The old man twisted his mouth at her. "Is he wrong, then? Raising an army hardly suits your delicate words about the wrongs of vengeance."

  "We're not talking about revenge, we're talking about liberation," Samarand said, meeting his gaze. "This has nothing to do with the Third Scour."

  "You say that with almost enough conviction for me to believe it."

  "Tarkon. You're old enough to remember when those people would kill you if you dared worship Arawn. Burnings, hangings—that sits fine with you?"

  "Of course not," Tarkon said. He cleared some phlegm from his throat. "The physicians have an oath about not applying the cure when it would be worse than the disease. Surely in our wisdom, deriving as it does from a far higher source, we're able to apply that credo here."

  Samarand touched her lips. "Unfortunately, we don't have the physician's experience to know when that cure would be worse. All I know is what I see."

  "What I see's a woman more driven by her own vision of justice than what we're given by the heavens," Tarkon said. The table was still and silent as Dante's days below the dungeons. Olivander coughed into his fist, as if that would be enough to make the moment pass.

  "We've been through this," said another graybeard who'd kept his peace so far. "This argument was old when I was still shitting myself."

  "You say that as if you ever stopped," said a third elderly man. The table dissolved into laughter, and Tarkon's momentum dissolved with it.

  "Indeed," Samarand said once they'd quieted down. "Olivander, get word to the smiths. Start drawing up estimates for what else we'll need and much it's liable to cost. Hart, speak to your people. Drop a hint I'm considering their request for a free principality at the fringe of the Dundens."

  "Are you?" the norren asked levelly.

  "I am considering it," she said. "Their actions between now and our hour of need may help their case." Tarkon chuckled, shaking his head. She ignored him. "That's it for now, then. Keep me apprised of your business. We move for Barden in eight days."

  She got up, nodding absently at Larrimore as she left the room. Some of the council filtered out as others stayed to rehash what had just happened. Larrimore stepped around Dante and the boy had to hurry to catch him in the hall.

  "Did you see that?" Dante said, glancing around to make sure she was gone.

  "Masterful," Larrimore said, shaking his head. "Throwing them off with who was going and who was staying, then bowling them over one by one."

  "Masterful? She started a war!"

  "While they were all too stunned to react. They respect her, though—she gives them just enough rope to think there's no leash at all. She may even grant Jackson's request to come along."

  Dante yanked on Larrimore's sleeve. "Did you hear what I just said?"

  "Yeah. War. What about it?"

  "Well, is that all it takes?"

  "What did you expect?" Larrimore frowned down on him, twice as far away as his normal ironic distance. "Inspiring speeches? Duty and honor? They've been working toward this or something like it since the day she took power twenty years ago. The only issue for the last ten was how they were going to get it done.'

  "What about Tarkon? He thinks it's a bad idea."

  "She was just letting him vent some of his more noxious vapors. You could tell by looking he didn't expect to sway anyone to his side." He glanced down at Dante again and frowned harder. "You have family there? In Mallon?"

  "No," Dante said quickly. He made himself cough to buy a moment and almost missed a step on the steep stairwell that led down to the ground floor. He caught himself, pressed his back against the solid stone. "It's about time they did something about the situation down there," he said before Larrimore could ask if he was all right, or any less convenient questions than that. "I just thought there would be more to the declaration."

  "Nope. You were just there to see how she kept the old bastards in line. She's the only one who can be that bold with them, of course, but the same tricks would apply for you or me."

  "It was eye-opening."

  "Well, get ready for a lot more of it. Later, of course. I've got too many tasks for you between now and when we ride out to spare another meeting."

  "So I am coming with you," Dante said. He allowed himself a long breath. In the headlong rush of the conversation around the table, he hadn't had the time to work out what he'd do if they meant to leave him behind. All his other ambitions had withered the moment he'd heard Samarand's nonchalant decree of war. He now had no other intent than killing her somewhere on the trail between the Citadel and Barden. He had to be there.

  "Of course," Larrimore said. "It pains me to risk swelling your fat head any further, but the others still underestimate you. You're my hidden trump if anything goes wrong."

  "I'll need Blays with us."

  "Whatever helps you do the things I need you to do."

  They reached the ground floor and parted ways. Eight days, Dante thought. Eight days before the beginning of the end. He was sent off with an order for a local merchant and returned to the Citadel to find three wounded watchmen being carted through the gates. Nak's fat belly jostled as he rushed across the yard to meet them. Dante joined the monk, saving two of the three and then all four of the others who arrived bleeding a few minutes later, the casualties of a small ambush on the fringes of the city. By the time a pair of acolytes came to relieve him should any other wounded arrive, Dante went to his cell and tumbled asleep.

  He awoke feeling cold and sore. Weak moonlight flashed on metal near the foot of his bed and he made out the dim silhouette of a man standing over him.

  "Blays?" he said softly.

  The sword snapped back. Dante rolled off his bed, heart jolting, and
scrabbled back as the blade slashed down into the pallet. His own sword was on the wall across the room. He readied himself to die, finding it much easier than the last times he'd so resigned himself, then his half-awake brain shouted through the din of his pulse and the chorus of his nerves. He twisted away from a short sword-thrust and reached out to the nether. It came at once, enveloping his hands, and Dante blasted the shadows forward in the next instant.

  He heard a deep grunt and a wet splatter like someone pouring stew out on the ground. The silvery line of the sword dangled in the man's hand. Weirdly, his belly seemed to be bisected by a faintly incandescent line. The man wavered on his feet and Dante realized the light was the outline of the bottom edge of the door, visible through the huge hole in the man's stomach. Dante's own convulsed, and he had to jump aside as the man fell onto his knees and then his face.

  "What are you doing?" Blays croaked from his bed.

  "Killing someone."

  "Ah. That again," Blays said in a dream-distant voice, then rolled over to face the wall.

  "Someone just tried to kill me, Blays. Blays. There's a dead man on our floor. He tried to kill me." Dante leaned over Blays' slumbering form and located his ear. "Blays!"

  Blays twitched his head up and conked it into Dante's. Dante fell back, bare heels bumping into warm skin. He skipped forward involuntarily. Blays squinted into the darkness, his body an indistinct blob in the middle of his bed, then all at once flailed all four limbs like he'd just been shot by an arrow.

  "There's a dead man on our floor!"

  "What should we do about that?" Dante said.

  Blays rubbed his face with both hands. "Who is he?"

  Dante knelt beside the corpse, inching away from the pooling blood that lay black in the moonlight. He grabbed the dead man's chin and stared into his face.

  "I don't know. I've never seen him."

  "You never called him the son of a whore? Spat on his boots? Gave him that look where you look like you think he's a fresh pile of crap?"

  "No," Dante said, in a light state of shock that made him feel this close to laughing. "I've never seen him."

  "We know he's from the keep, don't we?" Blays refolded his blanket over his shoulders. "I mean, you don't just wander in here off the street."

  "There are hundreds of men who live inside it."

  "Go get Larrimore. He knows everyone."

  "I can't," Dante said. "He'll start asking questions. Why would someone want to kill me? Am I up to anything he doesn't know about? He'll smell a rat. He's too smart. I already feel like I'm treading a knife's edge with him."

  "Well they're going to have a few questions when they find a body in our room."

  "We've only got one option." Dante swallowed. "We've got to eat him."

  "What?"

  Dante laughed like an idiot. Some part of him knew how serious this was, but at the same time it felt completely unreal. Bodies were ceasing to have any meaning to him. No matter what he did, they kept appearing at his feet, limp and useless. He snapped his mouth shut.

  "We've got to get it out of here," he said. Blays got up, blanket draped down his body to his bare shins. He circled the corpse.

  "Yeah, we'll just drag him out the front door," Blays said. "What the hell did you do to him? How much blood can one man bleed, anyway? Look at that. It's everywhere."

  "Don't worry about that. Get the window open."

  "Good idea. Bodies smell terrible when they're all opened up like that." He threw off his blanket and swung the bubbly glass window open. He leaned out it to get a breath, shoulders nearly brushing each side. "This isn't going to work."

  "Just get out there," Dante said, crouching hesitantly beside the body. How could he get a grip when it was so blood-slick? "Make sure no one's outside. I'll sort of hand him to you."

  "And then what? We heave him into someone else's back yard? Those walls are forty feet tall. You're not even going to be able to lift him."

  "Stop naysaying. We'll just drag him off somewhere that isn't here."

  Blays swore through his teeth. He planted his hands on the windowsill and wiggled his hips up on the ledge. He leaned the top half of his body through and paused there to consider the physics of his next move, ass and legs dangling back into the room. Dante swatted his legs. Blays kicked at him blindly, then wriggled forward into a controlled fall into the yard. Dante heard a soft whap of flesh on stone and more cursing. A moment later Blays' angry face appeared in the window.

  "Okay, genius. Hand him over."

  Dante grappled the man under his armpits and lifted from the knees, staggering back under the dead weight. He'd put on some muscle over the weeks of riding, running, and fighting, but he was still small, not yet grown into his full size, and the corpse, though not overly large, surely had outweighed him by thirty pounds before it had been drained of a few pints of blood. Dante's back thumped against the sill and he grunted. He regained his footing and strained upwards, thighs and back quivering, but somehow he lifted the body enough to get its head into the windowframe.

  "Give me a hand, damn it," he panted, hot with sweat and sticky with blood. Blays' arms snaked through the window and grasped two thick handfuls of the man's cloak. "Got him?"

  "I guess," Blays whispered. Dante stood there a moment, pinning the body to the wall with the weight of his chest, blinking and breathing until he didn't feel so weak, then he lowered himself and wedged his shoulder under the corpse's legs. Warm fluids soaked through his single plain shirt. He straightened his legs as hard as he could and Blays heaved from his side and the body scraped over the sill. All at once the man's gravity reached its tipping point and his loose legs kicked up as he fell into the yard, catching Dante on the chin hard enough to make him bite his own tongue.

  "Get out here," Blays called inside. Dante planted a palm on the wall, giving himself a moment—already he was exhausted, flushed and wheezing—then hoisted himself into the sill and wormed his way through the window. Halfway out, he realized there would be no graceful exit. Blays held out his arms like the walking dead and Dante sighed and let himself fall into them. They crumpled to the ground.

  "Now what?" Blays said from the bottom of their two-person heap. Dante untangled himself and glanced around the yard. They were in the dark corner where the chapel met the keep. A few outbuildings stood against the outer ring of wall across one hundred-plus feet of open space. There were no lights in the chapel other than the lantern that was always lit in its hall, at least, and he saw no guards patrolling the grounds at that moment. Just a few motionless bumps of men high and far on the outer walls. There was one other building further along the side of the keep, a simple wooden barracks where some of the pages and stableboys slept. Straw was mounded waist-high against its wall.

  "Dump it in that straw," Dante pointed. Blays shook his head but he grabbed one arm and Dante took the other and they leaned into it, one step at a time. The corpse whispered against the stone. They had to cross a full sixty feet, but they moved in the shadow of the keep, and he heard no shocked cries, saw no guards turn a corner and gasp at murderous intrigue. At last they reached the housing and heaved the man into the snow-damp pile.

  "Make it look half-assed," Dante whispered, shoveling some straw over the man's body.

  "That won't be hard." Blays circled it, kicking straw on the man's glaze-eyed face. They shifted enough around to hide the body from casual inspection, then stepped back and glanced throughout the silent yard. Blays' eyes followed the foot-wide track of blood between the pile of straw and the window to their cell. "And that? Shall I fetch a mop?"

  "Only if you're going to stuff it in your mouth," Dante said. He beckoned to the shadows and knelt alongside the gleaming trail. Nether poured from his hands and onto the smeared stones, whirling down it like the rapids of a stream. Where it passed the ground was left bare. Dante tugged Blays' sleeve and they hurried back to the window and stuffed themselves through, waiting in the middle of the original puddle for the nether to
finish its business. It poured over the sill, cleansing the floor, then pooled around their feet, seeking what was caking on their skin. It rushed up their limbs, black and noiseless as empty space. When it had finished its cleaning he summoned it to the window and gazed up on the star-pricked sky, then sent it hurtling straight up in as fine a point as it could make. It streaked away without a sound.

  The boys faced each other in the room, breathing heavily, laughing nervously. A few drops of blood congealed here and there, but it no longer looked like the obvious murder it had a minute before. Blays picked up the man's sword off the ground and tucked it under his pallet.

  "Do you have any idea why he was here? Who could have sent him?"

  Dante shook his head. "Another initiate, maybe, jealous of my progress. One of Larrimore's other agents, for the same reason." He shrugged, baffled. "Maybe someone discovered my true purpose and thought he'd win Samarand's favor taking care of it himself."

  "How could they have done that? What have you been telling Larrimore?"

  "I don't know. It's impossible to keep it all straight." Dante thumped down on his bed. Something twinged in chest and he hugged his arms to each other. "I'm always lying, always bluffing to hide what little I do know. I couldn't tell you a tenth of what I've said." He could feel Blays' eyes on him, but he couldn't make himself meet them. The humor that had sustained him all this way, his own private Pridegate, felt shattered and mossed-over as the outer stretches of this thousand-year-old city. "Most of the time I'm all right with it, but sometimes my stomach feels like it's bleeding from the inside. Do you have any idea what it's like? I'm on my guard every second of every day. I just want it to be over."

  "I had no idea. You always look the same, you know." Blays sat down across from him. "We've been here too long."

  "I know. You're right. I should never have let it go this far." He closed his eyes, shivered. "They're moving out in a week. We'll do it then. No matter what."