King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  “Sponge sent me to observe. He wants me to relearn the old ways,” Inda said.

  Lassad’s expression changed. Eased. “This is my first year. Most of the old masters had to go back in the saddle. For defense.”

  Inda turned his palm up. Lassad began talking fast, describing the academy’s changes over nine years, his tone of pride gradually becoming more strident. And when Inda did not answer, he shifted to his experiences on the coast.

  At first the details were precise and vivid. Inda listened, envisioning with the ease of experience the shoreline battles, as he and Lassad paced through the academy.

  Just as they reached the senior barracks, Inda, deluged by memory, found the pieces of Lassad’s stories increasingly difficult to put together.

  The bells rang for the midday meal. Beyond high walls rose the gull-shrill voices of stampeding boys. Inda was surprised to discover the old wariness and hunger back in Lassad’s gaze.

  Inda had wanted to see the senior barracks, but now he just wanted to get away. “I’d better go. Sponge will be looking for me.”

  Lassad mouthed the word Sponge, then flicked his fingers to his tunic, an inadvertent gesture.

  Inda returned it and started back. The details did not fit. Just as in the old days, Lassad had been strutting, maybe outright lying. Perhaps not at the beginning, but certainly toward the end.

  When he and Vedrid reached the archway connecting the academy to the castle, two women emerged.

  Inda looked up.

  “Tdor?” He jolted to a stop. She was taller, older, but he knew that face better than he knew his own.

  “Tdor-Edli,” Vedrid said, saluting. The other one in Runner blue he did not introduce, though he was aware of her sardonic smile.

  “I’ll take him,” Tdor said, and Vedrid ran off to report to the king.

  “You’re . . . tall,” Inda managed, and then his face heated. What a stupid thing to say!

  Tdor chuckled, that same wonderful sound, like the whuff of a pup, that he’d cherished in memory through all his years at sea. “You’re not tall.”

  They laughed; seeing one another again made them both feel giddy and awkward, their minds filled with nine years of questions and nowhere to begin.

  Then Inda put together the clues at last. Midway between amusement and irritation, he said, “I suppose Sponge is grilling Signi.”

  “She’s a Venn,” Tdor answered with a sober look. “You brought her here. We’ve been at war for years, and the Venn have been behind it.”

  Her voice, it was just the same, but lower. His scalp itched, his clothes pulled at him; a flicker of memory, of Tdor’s hands smoothing out his unruly hair and pulling his shirt laces right. He shook his head, trying to gather his wits. Signi was in trouble—with Sponge. “I wouldn’t bring an enemy.”

  Tdor turned a palm up. Her hand was still square, but bigger than he remembered, hard from years of bow and knife work. “I suspect he knows. But he cannot afford to be wrong.” Her hand swept to one side. Inda finally perceived Tdor’s companion.

  “Inda,” the blonde woman exclaimed. Inda had only peripherally been aware of the short blonde in mud-splashed Runner blue next to Tdor. He flicked a questioning glance her way. The sardonic quirk to her dark, wide-set eyes was familiar. “Remember me?”

  “Sh—Shendan?” Inda asked, amazed. He laughed. “Last time I saw you, I was ten.”

  “Yes.” She crossed her arms the same way Fox did when he was in his nastiest mood. “I rode all the way here, and you are to tell me where Fox is, and why he did not come home.”

  “He is with the fleet. He’s my—the commander now,” Inda said. “As for why he didn’t come—”

  “Don’t feed me any bran mash,” Shen cut in. “I’m not sick. Or old. Or weak. I want the truth.”

  As Inda squinted up at the sky, Tdor’s emotions swooped. Despite the years, and the scars on his face, she still knew what he was thinking: he wished he were anywhere else.

  But instead of slouching off as he might have as a boy, he said very quietly, “He doesn’t want to come home.”

  Shen drew in a breath. “All right. Tell me this. Is it us? Mother and me, and Marend? Or . . .”

  “No. It’s the treaty. Mostly. And I think your father as well.” Inda considered, then added with a tentative air, “He hasn’t said. But, well, you travel a lot with someone, you learn to hear the words they ride around. If he comes home, it’ll be later. After your father—”

  “Drinks himself to death,” Shen stated in a hard voice. “Yes.” She swiped at her eyes. “Thank you for the truth.” Without a word she swung around and vanished after Vedrid up the short tunnel.

  Inda whistled. Then shook his head. “I could have done that better. Though I don’t know how, with no warning.”

  “That’s why she waylaid you. So there wouldn’t be any well-considered speeches.” Tdor thought back to the single visit from the Sartoran mage all those years ago, and how she’d used diplomacy to deny them magic. Because they were Marlovans, that had been the real reason for all the compliments and diplomatic assurances, making her refusal much worse to bear—as if they were dangerous animals to be coaxed and praised back into their loose-boxes. She turned his way, wondering how to explain when she saw by his expression that he’d guessed.

  Her chest went cold, her skin rough. Inda was here.

  The world around her had gone awry, like the pieces of a dropped cup fitted badly together. She was the splattered drink. She couldn’t fit the world back together until she understood why she felt this way. But there wasn’t time to think.

  As always, duty funneled her back into motion. Tdor withdrew her hands from her sleeves and held out a heavy silver owl hair ornament. Once Tanrid’s. “Your mother desired me to bring this along. So that Branid would not rampage through the castle to find it and start wearing it, calling himself the heir.” She studied the mossy stones arching overhead, the dusty, scuffed toes of Cherry-Stripe’s boots on Inda’s feet. “I had come to ask the king to decide who will be heir to Choraed Elgaer.”

  Inda pressed his heels to his eyes.

  “Inda?” she asked, concerned.

  “Too much, too hard, too soon.” His face burned again. “Well. Nine years. I guess I’m to catch it all up in a month.”

  She held out the clasp, and when he extended his palm she dropped the heavy ornament onto it. Her fingers trembled slightly before vanishing back into her sleeves.

  He searched her face. “Tdor?”

  “It’s good that you are back.” She swung around and started up the tunnel with long strides. “You are needed at home.”

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said, walking sideways. Still with that searching gaze. She could feel it. “Tell me of home.”

  “Let’s go inside.” She indicated the flagged path ahead. For once she was relieved that the castle was enormous. She needed the time. “Hadand will let us use her rooms.”

  Inda fingered the heavy ornament that he had last seen in his brother’s hair, right before Captain Sindan took Inda to the coast. He tried to think—he needed to think—but he was distracted by the long corridors, the guarded stairwells, the occasional Runners of both sexes who stared at him with expectant faces, but most of all by Tdor striding next to him, her head a little bent, her brow tense.

  Tdor led him into a small room with a Fire Stick burning low on the grate, and Marlovan furnishings, so familiar from childhood.

  Tdor shut the door and stood with her back to it. “Your father has aged terribly. Your mother has been waiting so long in hopes of seeing you.” She shook her head. “Did you know about Tanrid?”

  Inda’s grimace was almost a flinch. “Evred told me.”

  Tdor lifted a hand, dropped it to her side. “Will you be coming home?”

  “Don’t know. I hadn’t thought ahead, except to warn Sp—Evred about the Venn. I hadn’t even known he was king, at first. The embargo has kept news from getting out, d’you see? All I could
think of was, would the Harskialdna put me against the wall for breaking exile. But it was my duty to bring the news even so.” He felt he was making excuses, that he needed to apologize, yet there was no accusation at all in her face, voice, or manner. “Sponge. Evred, that is—he wants me to command the defense.” Now that they’d started to talk, the impulse to speak was almost overwhelming. It had always been this way. He could tell Tdor everything, and she would make sense of the world.

  Her eyes widened. “And you agreed?”

  Inda held his hands out. “I’m used to command. And Evred seems to want me to do it.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can see why.”

  “Can you? I can’t. Is Hawkeye really so bad? Or is his father’s conspiracy held against him? I have never even seen a land battle. I haven’t shot from horseback since I was eleven. I have no idea what they do with those damned lances once they charge. The idea seemed right and true when we were sitting in Daggers, and Evred seems convinced, but when I’m away from him it seems crazy.”

  “Doesn’t most of your life seem crazy?” Tdor asked. “I mean, pirates?”

  He sent her a startled look, saw her wry smile, and laughed. “Last time I saw you,” she said, “I called you a haywit. And wished for nine years that you could get home just so I could unsay it. All right. Choraed Elgaer can wait.” Tdor made an attempt at a smile; Inda could feel her effort. “Hadand is so very glad to have you safely back—”

  A tap at the door caused her to whirl. She opened the door, spoke to someone outside, then shut it again and faced Inda. “Your—Mage Signi is with Evred in the map room right now. We’re to join them.”

  Inda was relieved and annoyed. Relieved because he could not define why this conversation with Tdor did not feel right: it had started fine, but then blew off course somehow. And he was annoyed at having been deflected from whatever had happened between Evred and Signi.

  But he dismissed that reaction. He’d been his own master too long, he had not thought ahead of the rights and wrongs of bringing Signi into Evred’s kingdom. Of course Evred had to interrogate her, and Inda could not be there.

  But Tdor knew all that.

  He studied her, truly uneasy now.

  She said quickly, reaching toward him, “It’s all right, Inda. It’s all right. They found common ground, there is nothing to fear.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  Her cheeks colored, and she turned toward the window as though the answer lay there. The hand she had stretched out to him withdrew into her sleeve. “It was Evred’s idea. To give us time alone,” she said to the window, and then she faced him resolutely. He could feel her effort. She did not want to be here having this conversation Why? “You have to remember that tradition is important here. More so now than ever. It gives a sense of stability that we really don’t have.”

  He still did not understand.

  She fingered her cuff, brushed a total absence of lint from her robe, then yanked the door open and walked out in her characteristic long stride.

  Inda followed, disagreeably aware that he had missed an important cue, or clue. He had that sickening sense that he was entering action blind. Except he was surrounded by people he loved, so the danger couldn’t be here—and yet, so far, not a single encounter had been even remotely like he had expected.

  The map room was a relatively short walk. Armed guards parted, and they entered a room with a huge carved table, covered by an exquisitely drawn map.

  All three were there, the women back by the windows: Evred watchful, Hadand quiet, Signi tired but composed. Inda was relieved, not that he’d expected his old friend to fling Signi up against the wall for execution just because she was Venn. The Harskialdna, Evred’s uncle, wouldn’t have hesitated, but Inda would never have brought her if he were still here.

  At a subtle gesture from Evred, Hadand invited Signi to accompany her to get some refreshment, and they left. With a questioning look at Inda before she soundlessly shut the door, Tdor moved to the window, out of the way but within view of the map.

  What? Inda asked her silently, but their childhood understanding seemed to have vanished.

  So he shifted to his own questions. “Lassad,” Inda said to Evred, jerking his thumb toward the west window, overlooking the academy. “A master?”

  “You have an objection to his promotion?” Evred asked, his voice neutral.

  Inda opened his hand. “How would I know? He told me about his action.” He did not want to say: He lied to me. How much has he lied to you?

  Evred said even more neutrally, “Dag Signi has told me a little about Prince Rajnir of the Venn. We will have to find out more.”

  Inda flicked his hand toward the door through which Hadand had taken Signi. “We can do that on the road, can’t we? We’ve got weeks ahead of us.”

  She’ll be locked in a windowless cell where she cannot harm us with magic or messages to her masters, Evred thought, but said only, “She says that there is no family continuity as we define it, in their kings.”

  Inda rubbed his jaw. “All I know is that they are coming.” He studied the map. “I see the mountains dividing us from Idayago. The only land route to Idayago is through this pass, right?”

  “Andahi Pass, yes.”

  “Whose are these castles at the north and south ends of the pass?”

  Evred said, “Ala Larkadhe is this one, at the south end. It’s an easy watch’s ride from Lindeth Harbor. The castle guarding the north end was called Sala Varadhe by the Idayagans. We’ve taken to calling it Castle Andahi, after the pass. The middle harbor’s castle is Trad Varadhe, and the eastern one, its harbor too small for capital ships, is at Ghael.”

  Inda said, “Flash’s dad is the Jarl at Castle Andahi, isn’t he? Has he changed his name to Andahi-Vayir? I remember that except for us, names had to match land.”

  “He’s been resisting.” Evred smiled briefly. “Says he should be Idayago-Tradheval-Andahi-Vayir, which sounds ridiculous, so that point has not been settled.”

  Inda studied the map, whispering the names to himself to get them firmly in mind.

  Evred went remote again, assuming what Inda was beginning to think of as his king face. “If Prince Rajnir has spies living among us, he has to know where most of our forces are. What do you see as his plan of attack?”

  Inda remembered what he’d said to Fox so casually, what seemed a hundred years ago, when he lay under an Ymaran oak recovering from Wafri’s torture. “Raids along the north coast first stage, to bring our defenses there.”

  “Which is where Barend is now. And the Venn have been raiding, according to his report. Our people have been fighting them off, with sporadic cooperation from the Idayagans,” Evred added with a wry smile. He thought of Nightingale, his Runner in the north, and his hand twitched toward the locket hanging inside his shirt.

  He yanked his fingers away again, though the Venn mage was no longer present. A surge of hatred tightened his muscles: a mage. A Venn! How could Inda be so simple? She was old—at least thirty—and as plain as a corn husk. She must have ensnared Inda by some magical trickery, at least to preserve her life. At most to spy.

  He dropped his hand to his side. She was probably far more dangerous left behind—could even his walls guard against the wiles of a mage?—than going along as a prisoner under his own eye. In which case he didn’t have to figure out some ruse to get her locked up when he took Inda north.

  Inda went right on, fingers tracing over the map. “Since we have no navy, they know we’re forced to go through the Andahi Pass to defend the north. But they have to come down through the pass if they want to attack by land. They have to figure we’ll be on the watch for an attack through the pass, so they’ll also come round by sea.”

  Evred looked at the long coast of Halia, now held by Iasca Leror. “They have enough men and ships to attack the entire coast?” he asked, sick with horror.

  Inda smacked his hand on the map. “No. That is, I don’t know what they mi
ght have next year, but this year they have eighty-one warships and their attached raiders and scouts. Say thirty-five hundred men per, all told. Eighty-one times over, give or take because they’ll have to find room for horses, and because some stay on board to handle the ships.”

  Evred’s eyes narrowed as he calculated, then he opened his hand. “Go on.”

  “The big Venn warships can’t get in close enough to land a lot of horses, even if they had them trained like ours. A big force needs the draft of a deep harbor in order to offload animals and heavy equipment. They’d have that at the Nob, of course, but then they’d be forced to march all the way down the peninsula. Is that practical?”

  “No,” Evred said with the conviction of experience. “You can ride in pairs at best. It would take them a month or more. But they can land men on a beach?”

  “Well, only just south of Lindeth. Boats, through the breakers. The coast of Ola-Vayir is rotten landing. Saw that when I was coming home. From near Lindeth on down it’s pretty much steep palisade above rocky beaches. Good defense, bad offense. So if they want to land in force anywhere along the coast from Ola-Vayir down to Parayid, it’ll have to be through a deep-water harbor.”

  “Harbors we can cover. We may have no navy,” Evred said grimly, “but we did learn how to defend harbors after all those pirate attacks.”

  “Which they have to know.” Inda thumped his fist down. “Where was I? Right. I think they’ll land a second force here at Lindeth Harbor, soon’s they know we’re up the pass, and bottle us up from behind.” He jerked his head up. “Didn’t Cherry-Stripe say the Arveases are doing well at the north end of the pass?”

  Evred said, “Yes. What cooperation there is has been best at that end of Idayago. I will be dispatching certain orders to Barend before we take horse. We do have a last, somewhat desperate defense if needed. It wouldn’t stop the Venn, but it might slow them.”

  Inda rapped his knuckles lightly on the map. “It might come to desperate defenses, if we don’t have those kinds of numbers.”

  Evred shook his head. “No. We never have. Our people live spread out. This is our only large city, and my mother once told me there are much larger ones. The Venn have twenty times the population we have. Maybe more.”