King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  If Inda had wanted a formal welcome, Evred would have roused the city to give it, complete to an audience in the throne room, bone-chilly from the long winter. He felt his family owed that to Inda.

  A short time later Evred, bathed and dressed, stood at his window gazing out into the night-black west. They would probably be up and riding by now. Evred had glimpsed Inda once, right after the defeat of the Brotherhood of Blood, though Inda did not know that. No one did. Inda had been dressed like a pirate, not like a Marlovan. Evred wondered if he still dressed like a pirate. Well, such things no longer mattered.

  But Inda knew what was due to his old scrub mate.

  At drill that morning they wore the old clothes they’d slept in, as usual. Then they retreated to the tents to change and pack for the last ride to the royal city.

  Tau was surprised when Inda emerged with his hair bound up, and his new coat smooth and buttoned instead of hanging open, the green sash Mran Cassad had managed to find (the proper green of Algara-Vayir) neatly tied around his waist. The biggest surprise was those boots Inda had gotten from Cherry-Stripe Marlo-Vayir. They’d given him terrible blisters the second morning when at Buck’s heavy-handed invitation Inda had commanded all the castle males, from Jarl to the youngest runner-in-training, in one of Fox’s drills.

  Inda had used a single knife. Marlovans thought of the left arm as the shield arm. Only women used two knives, their feet, and above all, balance and the power of motion. What little Inda showed them of Fox’s style of fighting had puzzled most, and inspired some—Cama most of all. Drill had been protracted that day; halfway through the morning Inda had kicked off the boots and finished his routine barefoot, leaving pink smudges of blood on the courtyard flagstones from where the boots had rubbed him raw. His feet were not yet healed after their hard ride southeast to the royal city.

  Inda minced with meticulous care. “I put two pairs of socks on,” he complained. “Can’t believe those blisters still hurt.” He twitched his brows, then shook his head. “While I’m whining, may’s well get it all out: it hurts my scalp, my hair tied up like this. I wonder if the horsetails ever noticed at seventeen.”

  “What, you’re an old geezer at twenty?” Jeje laughed.

  “He’s only twenty?” One of the Marlo-Vayir Runners sent as guides said to the other, as they saddled the horses.

  The second Runner pursed his lips. He was surprised too. It wasn’t just the scars, it was the way Inda moved; he was too stiff in the early morning, and too powerful when he got warmed up. More like a man of experience.

  Tau said, “At seventeen you’ll do anything to look tough. Like pierce your ears and hang golden hoops through ’em.”

  Inda cracked a laugh, flicking his rubies with his fingers. “Still don’t know if it was a good idea or a stupid one.”

  “Oh, it was a good one.” Tau’s mouth quirked with irony. “We stood out. It was swagger without us having to say a word. We’re going to stand out here, too. Whether that is good or bad, you’ll have to tell me.”

  “We’re about to find out.” Jeje waved a hand at their tent, which was still standing. “If you ever stop blabbing and help me pack that thing so we can go.”

  A low band of gray rain clouds wept a sleety mizzle, darkening stone and clothing and the wood of wagons, so that Tau’s first view of Inda’s royal city was dreary indeed. The city was surrounded by a vast high wall whose line was broken only by intimidating towers. In sunlight the stone of the walls and towers glowed a warm honey color, but in the gloom and wetness of rain it had darkened to a flat dun. The gate was massive, giving Tau and Jeje the sense that once it closed there was no possibility of escape.

  Surmounting gate and walls were gray-coated armsmen, some standing, others moving, all with weapons at the ready, all alert. On the inner walls prowled gray-robed women, equally armed, equally alert. They had bows strapped across their backs, making Jeje wonder what the men did in times of trouble. Maybe they scrambled down to fight hand-to-hand, while the women shot anyone crazy enough to attack a Marlovan castle, from their vantage point. It figured the women would have the position that made the most sense.

  All those Marlovan eyes watched Inda’s small party join the traffic at the gate, peaceably following carts and other riders. Jeje hated being stared at by so many people bristling with weapons, whatever their gender, and glowered at her horse’s ears.

  The interior of the city was equally unnerving to Tau, who marveled at how alike these people dressed and acted. But he did not see the fear nor the servile attitudes that he expected to find in such grim surroundings after years of hearing slander against the Marlovans.

  Tau mocked himself, ending that thought trail. He knew better than to assume Marlovans were any more of an indistinguishable “they” than any other body of people. He met gazes, not hiding his interest anymore than others did theirs. The range of expressions was what one would expect anywhere: curiosity, wry glances at their exotic clothing, soberness, and glances of frank appreciation from some of the strong-looking robed women either standing guard on walls or driving wagons in the streets.

  Tau turned his attention to his companions. Jeje scowled at her horse’s head. Signi’s brow and hands subtly betrayed her strain. Inda was oblivious to the mage’s distress. He slewed back and forth in his saddle with an intensity Tau had rarely seen in him, his breathing audible as he tried to take everything in at once.

  Inda was overwhelmed. There were two places he loved most in the world: the academy and his home in Choread Elgaer. After nine years of resisting the stubborn homing spirit, he was approaching one of those places: the royal city was home to the academy.

  The Marlo-Vayir guides led them a short way into the broad street beyond the gate and then up a slightly narrower street to the left.

  Just inside another set of gates, the courtyard traffic cleared, deferring to the three people who emerged from a tower archway, a tall man and a short woman in the lead.

  Inda uttered an incoherent cry and vaulted from his horse. His companions watched him hurl himself at the short woman, who closely resembled him. He picked her up into the air, kissed her smackingly, and then took in the tall red-haired young man just beyond her. “Sponge!”

  Laughter rose from guards and armsmen around and above them, and a curious crowd gathered by ones and twos outside the gate.

  Inda thumped Hadand onto her feet again, and faced Evred. He clapped his right fist over his heart, then opened his hand to indicate the other three. “Signi, Jeje, and Tau.” Inda’s voice was high, almost unrecognizable. “We stopped over a day at Marlo-Vayir, rain making the roads into rivers . . .”

  While Inda gabbled a disjointed summary of their journey, all attention was focused on him, with two exceptions.

  Tau was one. Tdor was the other.

  She had walked out with Hadand, but on the approach of the newcomers, she had stepped deferentially aside so as not to hinder the royal pair. After her first glimpse of her childhood companion, Inda, now all grown up, and scarred, and dizzyingly alien and familiar at the same time, Tdor turned to Evred for her cue to step forward and be noticed.

  So she and Tau were the only ones who caught Evred’s intense gaze, and bloodless, compressed lips, the passion that for a long breath the guarded young king could not mask.

  Two heartbeats only, then he regained his self-possession. Inda paused for breath, and everyone began talking at once.

  As word spread outward (a passing carter having asked the Marlo-Vayir Runners who the foreigners were) that the one with the earrings was in truth Elgar the Fox, Tau stayed back, holding the reins of his and Inda’s horses. He observed how with two swift gestures this king got everyone moving. In the midst of orderly chaos he separated Inda from the rest and they promptly vanished into the crowd.

  After Signi and Jeje took their gear from the saddle straps, a couple of stable hands led the women’s animals away. The short woman who looked like Inda made inviting gestures to Jeje and Si
gni; the tall one stood at her side, staring bemusedly into space.

  A pair of stable hands approached Tau, their manner expectant. What was he supposed to do?

  One held out his hand for the reins to Inda’s horse, the other waited for Tau’s reins. Tau relinquished the reins, but then the men just stood there. Waiting for? Was Tau supposed to remove his own and Inda’s gear?

  One of the stable hands made a motion toward the saddlebags, and the two helpfully steadied the animals. Ah. So he was now a servant. With a rueful smile, Tau unloaded the bags and hefted them over his shoulders. The animals were taken away, leaving him standing there alone.

  Inda’s sister was conducting Jeje and Signi toward the entrance to the tower looming over them. He decided to follow the women.

  Hadand and Tdor stopped just inside the tower entrance. Tdor closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her nerves tingled. Shock pooled inside her; her mind refused to work, senses walling off color, smells, noise, until Hadand stepped close beside her, giving a watery chuckle. “Can you believe that?”

  “Believe?” Tdor tensed.

  Hadand flicked her hand outward. “Evred and Inda slinking off like a pair of scrubs scamping wand-duty!” A quick look back at the two strange women who stared upward at the winding stone stairway of the tower, shafts of light angling down from the slit windows. “I don’t know what to do with Inda’s people. I guess take them upstairs and give them something to eat until Evred brings Inda back.” And she gave quick orders to her personal Runner in a whisper.

  As Tesar sped up the stairs ahead of them, Hadand gestured to the women. “Come with me,” she said in Iascan, and to her relief, both signified agreement. Good. They spoke a language Hadand knew!

  Tdor trailed after Hadand and the two strange women, peripherally aware of the tall young man with the golden hair falling in behind her, burdened with a double load of travel gear. Her insides now cramped, her knees had gone watery. She did not see the stairs or hear Hadand’s determinedly polite questions. She could not reconcile her own reaction to seeing Inda again with the vivid memory of Evred’s wide, hungry gaze. She found herself relieved that Evred took Inda away too fast for her to be noticed. She couldn’t define any of her emotions—she needed time to think.

  Deeply withdrawn, she walked uncomprehending past Vedrid, Evred’s First Runner, who stood very still on the first landing.

  Kened had reported to Evred only that Inda traveled with two women and a man he’d defined as a Runner. Evred had issued orders to Vedrid to get Inda’s Runner situated once they arrived; he’d been on the guard-side, at the far end of the long castle, when the wall sentries had signaled the arrival.

  So he’d come at a run, but when he looked past Hadand-Gunvaer and the other women to find a familiar golden-haired man, he froze, wit-flown.

  Tau also stopped, surprised at this Marlovan blocking his path, whose face had blanched almost as pale as his hair.

  “Angel,” Vedrid whispered as the women vanished up the stairwell leading to the royal wing.

  Tau’s mild surprise sharpened. Angel? That’s what they’d called him in Bren. A series of rapid memory images: a tall, thin man with pale hair almost kicked to death on the floor of an abandoned building, mistaken for a Venn spy. His whispered words a mumble because of a broken jaw.

  “I remember you,” Tau said. Yes, it was the same man, now buttoned into one of those blue Marlovan coats, his pale hair skinned back into a squirt at the nape of his neck “In Bren, was it not? Aren’t you the Runner those sailors jumped?”

  “Vedrid Basna. King’s First Runner. You saved my life,” Vedrid said slowly, his eyes wide and staring. “I thought I’d dreamed—” He made a visible effort to gather his wits. “If you are Indevan-Laef’s First Runner, I am to show you the chamber set aside for him.”

  I did not know what a Runner was—or for which king, Tau thought, his perspective shifting. Now he comprehended the questioning looks, the hesitations. All these Marlovans, including Evred, were trying to define his relationship to Inda. In the Marlovan world, everyone had a specific place.

  Well, why not go along? He was used to playing roles. And it was clear that the personal Runners—whatever those might be—had the inside line of communication. “Yes,” he said. “I’m Inda’s First Runner.”

  And Vedrid’s brow cleared. “Please. I owe you my life. I was charged to assist you, but it would be my privilege.”

  Inside line indeed. Tau opened his hand for Vedrid to lead the way.

  Inda and Evred had forgotten them all.

  As they passed through the gates and into the street, Evred talked at random, even laughed, merry and free, body, mind, and heart afire with joy. Inda laughed as well, cast back in time to the happy days of boyhood: his welcome had extinguished in a heartbeat the last shadows of homesick betrayal.

  It was inevitable that the random questions would settle first on the circumstances of their last meeting. “. . . and so Cherry-Stripe told me what little they knew,” Inda was saying.

  Was that anger or a wince tightening the corner of Inda’s eye? Inda’s voice was husky as the words tumbled out. “Why didn’t the Harskialdna believe me? He had decided against me before I spoke a word. I figured that much out, sick as I was. Cherry-Stripe and Buck say it’s because of a promise made to the Kepri-Davans, but that sounds too easy.”

  “Right. Underneath that was a lifelong jealousy,” Evred said; the word jealousy taunting him with an image of that tall, golden-haired young man in the courtyard. Evred was sure he was the same one with Inda at Lindeth Harbor that terrible day.

  Inda tipped his head in question, the same way he had as a boy of ten. The gesture, so well-remembered, was curiously painful.

  “Lifelong jealousy?” Inda repeated. “Lifelong. Then you can’t just mean at the academy. Over what, my father’s first wife, Joret? I know she was as beautiful as the Joret we grew up with. Everyone seemed to want her. Did that include your uncle, then? Is that it?”

  Inda grimaced again, almost a flinch. Evred frowned, disturbed that he could not interpret Inda’s reaction.

  “Wait.” Inda flung out a hand, whirling to stand in the middle of the street, oblivious to traffic. “Your uncle was only a year older than my Uncle Indevan—ten. Aunt Joret would have been almost done with the queen’s training, and my father had to have been nineteen or twenty, because their class started a couple years late on account of the war up north. So your uncle can’t have wanted either Joret or my father. Not at ten. That dog won’t run.”

  “Not the jealousy of thwarted desire, but of my father’s notice.”

  “Huh.” Inda’s brows rose, as if such a concept was blind ingly new. “Wait!” He patted the air with his hands, neither of them aware of wagons rolling past laden with sacks of rice, a young boy hawking fresh-baked pies, a trio of stone-layers trundling by some new-shaped honey-colored stone. “Wait,” Inda said again.

  Evred braced himself for the shock of Inda’s wide brown gaze, still guileless in spite of the years and their unknown burdens.

  Then Inda made an impatient movement, flipping his fingers up, another remembered gesture. “But you can’t say ‘Oh, everything he did was because he wanted his brother’s attention.’ Too easy. Nobody acts on a single cause except in the old heroic ballads.”

  They started walking again—neither aware of it, anymore than they were aware of the unconscious pull of very old habits—in the direction of the academy.

  “Can we ever define exactly what shapes an individual’s character and perception of events?” Evred answered. It was like the old days, their endless debates in the summer sunshine while pitching hay, or tending horses, or repairing tack, or drilling over and over; he shivered inside, then coughed to clear his throat, to force his voice to normal. “My uncle wanted two things. He wanted to be first to my father and he wanted to keep the kingdom safe. How he exerted himself to get these things is shaped by these other matters.”

  “But tha
t doesn’t explain why he blamed me for Dogpiss’ death,” Inda said. Then he cast a furtive look behind him, which surprised Evred. No one was following them—he’d made that order clear.

  Evred was further surprised when Inda abruptly shifted the subject.

  “This might seem an odd question, but was there any mention in all those records of a fellow . . . named Dun?”

  “Do you mean Hened Dunrend?” Evred asked, surprised at this sudden, completely unrelated turn of subjects.

  Inda whistled, long and low. So far, only Signi knew about the ghost riding at his shoulder. Inda couldn’t see him, but he knew the ghost was real, because he’d felt a weird prod inside his head during battle, ever since Dun’s death, when Inda woke up a prisoner of pirates. It—he—had saved his life repeatedly with those unmistakable internal warnings.

  Should he tell Evred? No, better to wait; a lot of people didn’t like talk of ghosts, and wasn’t there something nasty about one of Evred’s ancestors and a ghost? So he said, “I knew him as Dun the Carpenter’s Mate. He signed on with me that first day, when Captain Sindan first brought me to Lindeth Harbor. Afterward, well, I noticed things. He talked like the northerners, except some of his words reminded me of Marlovan. And he was really, really good at staff fighting, far better than any sailor. But then it was too late to ask. He died when we were first taken by pirates.”

  Evred said, “He was one of the King’s Runners; I don’t know if you remember, but they have their own training. I discovered in my father’s papers that he sent Dunrend to run shield for you, though you were never to know it. If you came back—and I think my father wanted you to, but events got in the way—you could thus never reveal that he’d interfered in my uncle’s decisions. Sindan met with him, after your first journey, and that’s how we found out that you were alive. Did you ever ask him any questions?”

  “No. And he didn’t ask me, either. Typical Marlovans, eh?” Inda laughed, the long white scar on his temple creasing. That scar hadn’t been there when Evred saw Inda in Lindeth. “Hoo! Look where we are.”