King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  Then he trod into the room, wincing at each step. Reality, so often absurd and thereby curiously steadying, reasserted itself.

  “No kicking the boots off,” Cherry-Stripe warned as he followed Inda into the dining room. “Your feet’ll get used to ’em in a day or two.”

  Buck sat down. “Eat. You may as well wait until tomorrow, unless you’re all good at riding into a storm that smells like it’s gonna drop some snow.”

  Cherry-Stripe rubbed his hands vigorously. “Roads are getting worse. Everyone’s been west fighting pirates. Wait until the day after tomorrow unless you want to swim. You can leave before dawn next day. We’ll send you with Runners, so you can take our post horses. Better, use the king’s, because if you aren’t on King’s Business, then I’m a Venn.” He grinned. “So this morning, you run the drill, pirate style.”

  Inda snorted. Then saw by the intensity of the brothers’ gazes that they were serious. “All right.”

  “Good.” Buck clapped his hands and rubbed them. “Now, first things first. Me an’ the boys talked this morn. You can guess that becoming king didn’t make all Evred’s problems go away.” Inda opened his hand, and Buck went on. “We think you should know some of what he’s facing.”

  The brothers deferred to Cama, who said, “Besides the embargo, the wreckage of the coast, the army spread too thin. Oh, and the lack of magic renewals.”

  Inda grimaced, not telling them that Iasca Leror’s problems had been gloated over elsewhere in the world. “Go on.”

  “There’s trouble at home. My brother Horsebutt at the head.” Cama’s voice sharpened with derision; Stalgrid Tya-Vayir was one of the few who hated his academy nickname, but everyone used it when not in his presence. Especially Cama, after enduring a lifetime of bullying. “He’s using the excuse of lack of trade to pressure Evred into revoking the royal portion of guild taxes during wartime, since the guilds are already sending warriors.”

  Inda said, “But isn’t the guild portion traditional?”

  “ ‘Traditional’ since we moved into castles and figured out what guilds were,” Mran Cassad observed wryly.

  Buck flicked up the back of his hand. “That’s what Horsebutt gives for tradition—unless it serves him. He also knows the king can’t take over paying warriors in the field, unless he gets money. But he thinks because Evred is young that he’s weak, that he’ll give in and the Jarls will get concessions that make them stronger. And Inda, there isn’t a single jarl family that doesn’t have a flight or more of riders out there somewhere, helping with the defense, so the question of who’s going to pay for their food and fodder concerns everyone.”

  “But can’t Barend belay that? Or Hawkeye, if he’s doing some of the Harskialdna work?”

  Belay? The Marlovans looked puzzled, but let it pass. “Barend doesn’t command anyone’s loyalty. They don’t know him,” Buck said.

  Inda scratched his scalp. Binding his hair up hurt his scalp fiercely, though he wouldn’t tell the others that. “Why is Horsebutt doing it? What can he think he’s going to get?”

  Cama said, “A future crown.”

  Inda understood at last: marriage negotiations over future daughters and Evred’s firstborn son. Those were usually settled by treaty a generation or even two generations before birth. But if there had been so many attacks and deaths—like in his own family—

  Tanrid. Inda remembered his brother’s warm fingers ruffling his hair over his ear. How that memory hurt.

  Cherry-Stripe said, “People are talking about future babies and alliances because Evred says with the war and everything so uncertain we Tveis ought to marry, and the Ains ought to get heirs born right away. Not to wait until we’re forty like usual. Imagine being forty!”

  “We might not make it to forty,” Cama muttered.

  Cherry-Stripe snorted. “That seems a real enough possibility. Especially after Inda’s news.”

  Chapter Nine

  HADAND gripped Tdor’s shoulders. “What would you say, Tdor,” she breathed, her eyes bright, glittery, full of tears. “What would you say if I told you that Inda is coming home?”

  Tdor’s nerves flared, then chilled to snowmelt. She had arrived in the royal city that day from the long ride north, having spent most of it rehearsing what she’d say.

  And in the space of a single breath, the weight of painful choices was gone, flown like a caged bird tossed into the air.

  Hadand laughed now, an unsteady laugh as the unheeded tears spilled over. She smeared them away with her palms, and then hugged Tdor. “He’s coming home, he’s coming here. He’s probably a day or so to the north. Maybe less. Can you believe it? After all these years!”

  Tdor gulped down a sob. “D’you know what brings him?” she managed, her voice high and squeaky. Not that she cared.

  Hadand sniffed and wiped her eyes again. “The Marlo-Vayir Runner only said that Inda has news for the king. Oh, Tdor. I’ll send one of my own Runners back to Choraed Elgaer, as soon as we actually see Inda, to tell my mother. You must stay here and greet him. Mother will be so happy!”

  The two embraced again, laughing and crying.

  Hadand had received Tdor alone in her own rooms, and now waited for Tdor—who looked about from window to door to table as if she had never seen such objects before—to recover.

  Tdor could not yet believe she was being given back what she had wanted all her life. She felt light as a bird as they shared a quick meal, and then she accompanied Hadand up to the sentry walk, where the wind had died down, leaving a clear sky.

  The early-spring slant of the sun was not nearly strong enough yet to be hot; it felt good on the backs of their shoulders as they sat easily on crenellations watching the girls of the queen’s training at knife practice below, as Hadand caught Tdor up on kingdom news.

  “. . . and guess whose daughter Horsebutt is trying to force us to take as future wife to our son?”

  Tdor shook her head. “Wasn’t all that set out in treaty before any of us were born?”

  Hadand looked grim. “Yes. But you don’t realize how many of those careful marriage treaties have been disrupted by war deaths.” She twiddled her fingers. “The next queen was supposed to be descended from the Ola-Vayir heir, but he died defending the coast. And his brother wasn’t to have children. They want to change that, to get a connection to us, but Horsebutt wants to prevent the Ola-Vayirs from gaining any extra influence that he might gain himself.”

  Tdor pushed her palm away, a gesture of warding. “Who? Horsebutt can’t possibly be trying to break his own family treaties, or he’d have trouble with the clans. So—oh, ugh, not Mudface?”

  Dannor Tya-Vayir, Horsebutt’s sister and wife to Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir, had been the most unpopular girl in the queen’s training, even more disliked than Cama’s wife, Starand Ola-Vayir.

  Tdor rested her chin on her hand. “But didn’t Hawkeye’s family have their generation’s children all promised?”

  “Yes, but some rescinded after the conspiracy. Mad Gallop Yvana-Vayir died the death of treason, which can undo all his treaties if the other side wants. It’s accepted custom.”

  Tdor’s brow puckered. “Wait. You said the next generation. Wasn’t your future son to marry outside the country, like Evred’s father did?”

  “Yes, but there’s no treaty. Evred’s father had approached the Idayagans, thinking it a peace gesture. That horse won’t run, because we’re evil conquerors, despite how the Cassads made a success of marrying our ancestors. So. What with all the other changes, it’s I who must settle it all.”

  Tdor huffed a sort of laugh. “How strange! I was so involved in my own worries—wondering who you and Evred would pick for me to marry—I never considered that it would fall to you to choose for our children. Or is the treaty with the Montredavan-Ans to hold?”

  Hadand smiled. “I promised Shen that she would still raise Inda’s and your daughter. If Inda came home.”

  Tdor turned her palms up. She’d grown up knowing t
hat Inda and she were supposed to have a daughter, who was promised to the Montredavan-Ans. A son would have been the future Algara-Vayir Rider captain. It was a prospect that had always seemed impossibly remote.

  Hadand grinned wryly. “And now Inda is coming home! We must arrange the marriage as soon as possible.”

  Tdor’s euphoria damped: Inda was yet to arrive, and what if he did not want to return to Choraed Elgaer after almost ten years?

  Hadand went on. “Back to Horsebutt. He thinks he can get a Tya-Vayir in the royal family one day. He’s using every political weapon he can contrive to force Evred into accepting Dannor’s daughter.” She mimed an exaggerated shiver. “Can you imagine how horrible it would be if Dannor’s daughter is like her?”

  Tdor turned her thumb up, stray impressions flitting through her tired mind, distracting moth-wing thoughts that she tried to banish: how strange it was to be back here, a grown woman, how careworn Hadand looked, how shabby the clean, much-mended tunics on the girls appeared. Even Hadand’s fine-woven cotton-wool robe was not new, its yellow dye faded along the shoulders, the seams worn, and Tdor laughed inside, thinking of the mad scramble back at Castle Tenthen the night before she left, stitching her frayed cuffs and carefully turning the hem to her robe to wear in the royal city, so she wouldn’t bring shame on Choraed Elgaer by looking threadbare.

  She faced Hadand. “Surely Starand has to be fighting that. After all, she’s an Ola-Vayir. I’m surprised she doesn’t want to put forward her own future daughter and break whatever treaty they have.”

  “Starand.” Hadand shuddered. “Why is it the two men Evred needed most as interim Harskialdnas have impossible wives? Poor Hawkeye! Poor Cama!”

  “Starand would hate Dannor getting a daughter married to a future king. Why isn’t she interfering in Horsebutt’s plot?”

  Hadand frowned. “I don’t think she knows. Horsebutt is trying to keep it secret. Imand avoids Starand, and though she despises gossip, she thought I’d better know about Horsebutt’s plan for the kingdom’s sake. Starand really would hate that, wouldn’t she?”

  Tdor said, “Beyond anything.”

  “So . . . if Imand lets her know, then the trouble shifts between Starand and Dannor, each pulling Horsebutt’s arms in opposite directions, so he’s too busy to plot.” Hadand whistled the chords of a cavalry lance charge. “I call that good for the kingdom!”

  “The only things Starand and Dannor loathe more than not having precedence and power is one another. You can make a vow on it.”

  Hadand was still smiling when she brought Tdor to the dining room where she and Evred usually met. It was a room with pleasing proportions, windows down the west side, the balcony outside, the old raptor table and chairs, it all reminded Tdor of the nursery room that she’d seen once. She wondered briefly if one’s notions of comfort and appeal arose from warm memories of childhood joy and safety.

  “Sit down, we can begin. Evred will get here when he gets here,” Hadand said.

  Tdor dropped cross-legged onto her mat and took up the broad, flat wine cup in her hands. They’d drunk some of the good sweet wine when the door opened, and Tdor saw Evred for the first time since her single meeting with him in his mother’s chamber, years ago. He had changed from the shy, skinny red-haired boy with the bobbing throat-knuckle; his high-pulled hair had darkened to a reddish-highlighted auburn. He was tall and well-built, with the austere, hawk-nosed look of his forebears.

  He touched his hand to his heart and held it out to Hadand; they brushed their fingers together. Then Evred sat down, turning Tdor’s way with an air of puzzled courtesy. He did not recognize her. That was obvious.

  “Tdor is joining us,” Hadand said, as Tdor saluted, hand flat to her heart.

  Evred’s brows lifted. “Tdor Marth-Davan?”

  “Yes. My mother sent her to ask who the next heir should be.” Hadand chuckled. “So I asked her to stay. Who better to be here to welcome Inda, after all these years?”

  “Who better indeed?” Evred said, the faint aloofness gone. Now he seemed merely a quiet, rather reserved young man. “Welcome, Tdor. I confess I hadn’t expected to see you here, but Hadand is right. I am sorry about your father,” he added.

  Tdor murmured her thanks, not saying that she’d never really known him, that her reaction, on hearing of his death the year before, had been sorrow on her mother’s behalf, but not her own. Even on her yearly visits, which had stopped when she was in her mid-teens, her father had paid no attention to her whatsoever. She scarcely remembered his features except for a glaring frown. He had been too bitter that he had not had a son. “My mother writes that Cousin Ander, uh, Mouse, is a good Jarl,” Tdor said.

  Evred’s polite smile broadened to real warmth. “Mouse Marth-Davan was with me in the academy, did you know that?”

  “Yes. Whipstick says that during his academy days he became proud of being called Mouse, though I confess I do not see why.” Tdor laughed, a rich, soft chuckle, her smile transforming her plain face. “But then I’ve never understood how Whipstick could abide his own nickname. I didn’t even find out he had a given name until he’d been living with us several years.”

  Hadand put her chin in her hands, pleased at her husband’s relaxed face and Tdor’s happiness, which seemed to radiate summer warmth in her smile, her eyes, even in her voice. “I never even thought of that. Like his father Horsepiss. Somehow those Noths wouldn’t have ordinary names. What’s Whipstick’s?”

  “Senrid.”

  “Oh, how boringly everyday. I’d hoped it was something more awe-inspiring, like Adamas—for Adamas Blacksword of the Deis—or Savarend, which has the mystery of former kings plus the appeal of the forbidden.” Hadand laughed.

  Evred gave Tdor a rueful smile.

  Tdor smiled back, wondering if Evred knew that the Montredavan-An heir, using the name Fox, had been one of Inda’s companions out on the sea. And would Fox be coming back with Inda? If so, his sister Shendan, so loyal all these years, would want to know. Should she bring it up?

  Not knowing how Evred felt about his family’s history with the Montredavan-Ans—which felt unsettlingly current, like the question of marriage treaties—Tdor shifted the subject. “Whipstick says if he hears ‘Senrid’ he thinks his mother is angry with him, and he insists she’s even tougher than Captain Noth.”

  Hadand whooped and this time Evred chuckled as servants passed round dishes of spiced rice well laced with cabbage and slow-cooked chicken.

  Then Tdor said, “Whipstick rode all the way to Marth-Davan to hear the details of that last pirate battle. You can imagine how many songs there are about it in the south.”

  “I shall have to hear some,” Evred said. “What tidings of Jarend-Adaluin bring you? And Fareas-Iofre?”

  Tdor made a business of helping herself to the rice while she considered what to say about Hadand and Inda’s parents. She sent a quick glance at Hadand, who gestured palm up.

  “Jarend-Adaluin does not do well in winters,” Tdor said. “We think his mind wanders endlessly in the past. Fareas-Iofre is well, and bade me carry her best greetings. She cherishes those copies of Old Sartoran texts you made her when you were up north. They give her much—” she avoided the word “comfort” and settled on “—pleasure.”

  Evred lifted a hand in acknowledgment and the talk slid easily to her journey, and thence to defense preparations at Castle Tenthen against possible invasion.

  Hadand watched the last of the too-habitual tension ease from Evred’s brow, and smiled at Tdor in gratitude. She always knew what to say and do, she had a gift that way.

  As for Evred, he did not remember having met Tdor, and had scarcely given her much thought, but he found this tall, thin, sober-browed young woman quiet, knowledgeable, and interesting. She had a low, pleasing voice, quiet yet brisk. She would make an excellent wife for Inda, now that he was coming home.

  Inda was coming home.

  The potential joy was like the feel of the summer sun after what ha
d seemed an endless winter storm, and yet there was the instinctive question, the readiness to disbelieve. There had been too many disappointments in the past.

  With the ease of practice he shut away his emotions and bent his attention on Tdor, but she sensed that the meal was over.

  They parted amicably, promising to meet for breakfast, which Hadand assured her later was rare on Evred’s part.

  “He’s worried about the north,” she said. “He’s received word from his Runner there that no Venn warships at all are in sight, and the people have been dancing victory dances. Should we call Barend and the forces on the north coast back home, as soon as the weather holds good? Especially with all this trouble over who pays to support them?”

  “If he calls them back, who defends the north?”

  “That’s exactly the question. I hope Inda brings an answer, because we do not have one.” Hadand sounded tired and tense. “Who defends the north?”

  Chapter Ten

  EVRED woke at a touch.

  His room was dark. He smelled the mingled sweat of horse and man, heard a quick step. The guards would only let a Runner past—

  Runner? His heart thumped.

  “It is I, Evred-Harvaldar,” came the familiar voice of Kened, the Runner he had been expecting. “I just arrived. Indevan-Laef is half a morning’s ride west.”

  “Thank you.” Evred’s mouth was dry. “You met him?”

  “Yes. As you instructed.”

  “Does he ride with banners flying?”

  “No.” Kened chuckled as he thought about the scar-faced young fellow, barely older than the academy horsetails by the look of him, who rode barefoot, hair hanging down in a scruffy round braid. His gaze was keen for all that. “He wants to come in quiet. No noise, is what he said,” Kened finished.

  “Good. Then quiet it shall be. Go get some rest.”