King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  “What happened?” Tau asked, watching Signi shake her head and raise a hand as if warding something. Inda twined his fingers through hers, and Tau heard a brief, “Evred would never hurt you. Try not to see them as enemies.” Then Inda’s voice dropped to an indistinct rumble.

  “She got grilled by the king. Then Fox’s sister showed up. She grilled everybody she could catch—including Signi—then rode off into the sunset.”

  “Fox has a sister?”

  Jeje snorted. “From all he’s ever told us about his family, I thought he’d hatched out of the ground.”

  “Hatched? From the ground?” Tau repeated, brows aslant.

  Jeje waved a hand dismissively. “Last, the king booted everyone out. When I woke up from my nap, someone brought me here, and I found these two. I think Signi wants to renew spells. I guess they haven’t had mages here in ages. But that king of Inda’s made it real clear he doesn’t trust her far’s he can spit into the wind.”

  “Who’s the tall woman who was standing with the queen on our arrival?”

  Jeje made sure Inda and Signi were busy with their low talk, and turned her back on them. “Tdor. Inda’s future wife. I got that out of Inda’s sister. They’ve been promised since she was two and he was born. That’s the way they do marriage here. With the rankers, anyway. You don’t choose someone to share your hearth and home and children, it is done for you, by treaty, before you’re born.”

  Tau whistled soundlessly.

  “Tau! You’re back!” Inda reached for an ale cup. “Where’d you go?”

  “I am now your personal Runner. Whatever that means.” Tau raised a hand toward the window. “So I went exploring in order to learn where to run. As much as I could in a city that seems to have yet to discover the benefits of street signs. Do the streets actually have names?”

  Inda grinned. “Yes, but they change around. When we took over the royal city from the Iascans, the king had all the old names changed, which meant taking down their markers. But then he decided it was better for defense never to put any up. So there aren’t any. It’s not like a lot of foreigners come visiting.”

  We, Jeje thought. Nine years away, and he says “we.”

  “All right. So there’s a reason, even if it seems slightly demented. Second question: why are the bells so loud here? Is it that the entire city is made of stone with those extra high walls?”

  Inda looked tense, though he was obviously trying for lightness. “The bells have to be audible on the plains below the city. When ringing alarms, not just watch changes. What else did you find?”

  Tau observed Signi’s strained expression, the smudges under her eyes as he said, “That there are no fan-makers or ribbon-makers, that musical instruments other than drums and reed-pipes seem yet to be discovered, that most of the business one sees relates to horses in some way. Horses, food, and war gear.”

  “Well, in a harbor, everything relates to the sea.” Jeje shrugged. “Outside of trade goods going inland.”

  “Anyone who wants instant wealth has only to draw the meanest set of traveling players over the mountains and set up a theater. There is no such thing here, can you imagine?”

  Inda sat back, one arm round Signi’s shoulders. She leaned into him, her eyes closed. Tau’s gaze shifted to the flush along Inda’s cheeks that indicated he’d been drinking. A rarity; the last time Tau remembered seeing Inda downing anything potent was the night before the Brotherhood battle at The Narrows.

  “We read ancient Sartoran plays when we’re tutored,” Inda mused. “I didn’t know people did other things than read ’em.”

  “Plays,” Tau struck a pose, “are meant to be performed.”

  “Maybe they wouldn’t like that here.” Jeje yawned, not because she was tired, but because she was restless. It had been a stupid idea to come here. “Unless you’ve got some about battles and horses.”

  Tau wondering why Inda was drinking, why his free hand traced round and round the top of his cup. He was home at last, where he’d wanted to be for almost ten years, and the trouble that had kept him away appeared to have been summarily banished by his friend, the king.

  Ah, yes, the king. Had Inda understood that look of hunger? Did he even see it? More to the point, what was the responsibility of the friend who had definitely seen it?

  But the subject was plays. “Anyplace you can walk into the meanest inn and hear people singing twenty verse ballads, unerring, with carters and hay-pitchers correcting the slightest omission, sneering at the tiniest fumble in cadence, you’ve an audience waiting to discover the joys of the stage.”

  “You can stay and try it, or ride with us tomorrow,” Inda said.

  “Ah. Am I to hear the reason why we have to renew our just-healing butt blisters? I confess I assumed we were to stay in this royal castle more than a day. Unless they decided we’re pirates after all, and are about to come in force to toss us out?”

  A distant bell rang, and Inda got to his feet. He looked strange with his hair pulled up high. Binding his hair up was something new, a heavy, ornate silver hair clasp fashioned in the shape of an owl in flight.

  “I’ll explain on the way to supper,” Inda said, and did.

  Dinner was in a room down the hall, with low tables and more of those flat wine cups. The same three people who had come to greet them were there. During the interim Hadand and Evred had worked feverishly hard to set in motion the enormous chore of equipping an army overnight; Tdor had shown Inda and Signi the way to Inda’s room.

  There she had endured an uncomfortable stretch as they all made painstaking conversation in Iascan, which Signi barely understood. Tdor’s heart had wrung at how hard all three of them tried to find something of interest to the others.

  Tdor did not know how long that excruciatingly boring conversation about horses would have limped along until Inda muttered something that caught Signi by surprise. The dag turned her head, her trembling fingers just touched his, and his hand tightened round hers as they leaned into one another. It was only a moment, but it was so profound a withdrawal from the world, a cleaving to one another that left Tdor out at the same moment she had been wondering if she could sniff his hair—did he still smell like a puppy?—she wanted to touch the scar by his eyes—

  No, she wanted to kiss it.

  Just then the two caught themselves up—they remembered her—and consciously pulled away from one another. Signi asked a polite question while Inda poured out three cups of wine that no one wanted. All well-meaning, all consciously including her. But she had found herself business elsewhere as soon as she decently could, and went to walk in the cool air until she heard the bell for dinner.

  Tau lingered at the back as everyone filed into the dining room. He wondered what the role of Runner was supposed to be.

  He watched Evred-Harvaldar for clues. The king’s hazel gaze brushed past Tau with no invitation, but no rejection, so he followed Jeje in. And on impulse Tau threaded himself expertly through the where-should-I-sit shuffle to a place next to the tall, brown-haired Tdor, Inda’s affianced wife, who had effaced herself so quietly that morning.

  “We can all speak Sartoran, I trust?” Evred-Harvaldar opened a hand toward Signi.

  His reward for making it clear she was not to be shut out was Inda’s sudden, wholehearted smile.

  Servants brought the food in, setting it out for everyone to help themselves. Evred spoke to one; the servants touched hand to heart, but there was no bowing, and at no time did Tau ever hear the customary honorifics such as “Your Majesty” that were common elsewhere. The servants then left.

  Conversation skimmed the surface with scarcely a splash: the ride from Marlo-Vayir—food—harvest—food in port cities—worst food ever eaten. Jeje sparked the first laugh with her scathing portrayal of the terrible food at Freedom Harbor’s pretentious Colendi eatery.

  Everyone laughed but Signi, whose head ached from the demands of this exceedingly long day. For now she would listen. These Marlovans all spok
e the quaint Sartoran of generations ago, soothing to the ear.

  Evred laughed, but absently, and gradually withdrew into watchful silence; the weight of enormous preparation for riding out pressed on him and he longed to take Inda and be about it. But his mother was an Adrani, she had raised him to be aware of outland expectations due to guests. He would not be perceived as a barbarian.

  “. . . I’m chief mate of Vixen, like I said. Scout crafts don’t have captains. And Tau didn’t want to be a captain,” Jeje was saying to Hadand.

  Jeje’s Sartoran was difficult for the Marlovans, a blend of Inda’s accent and something flat and odd—Chwahir, in fact, though the Marlovans did not know it. Jeje had learned the language from a former crewmate who had sailed back to Chwahirsland after the pirate defeat.

  Sensitive to the subtlest motion of hand or eye, Tau became aware of a furtive but persistent scrutiny. He glanced up once to meet the steady brown eyes of the queen.

  Hadand flushed and concentrated on Jeje talking about Inda’s fleet, leaving Tau to study her with interest. Hadand’s wide brown gaze was unexpectedly like Inda’s. He was intrigued by the slight tension in her shoulders, the nearly imperceptible flare of her nostrils that revealed her awareness of his attention. She appeared to be about his own age.

  “. . . and that’s the last of ’em now,” Jeje finished.

  Evred forced himself to speak. “You say they have sailed to the south, then? Away from us?”

  “That was the plan,” Jeje said warily.

  Inda said, “Even if we hadn’t lost most of Eflis’ tail of small craft in the sail west—they were worthless anyway—we couldn’t take on the Venn’s southeastern fleet.”

  Evred said, “I understand that. Your former ships won’t turn on us, then? That’s my only concern.”

  “No,” Inda said.

  “No,” Jeje stated, now glaring a challenge.

  Inda sent her a mild look of reproach. She flushed, her black eyebrows an unbroken scowl-line across her forehead, and busied herself with her food. At Tdor’s prompt, Inda described Freedom Islands.

  Of the Marlovans, only Hadand had been beyond the borders, and she remained silent. Tau shifted smoothly to the royal city, and his appreciation of the local music. Tdor showed her good nature by talking determinedly about old ballads, as if anyone cared. With Tdor the center of attention, Tau sat back, turned his head—and there were Hadand’s light brown eyes again. This time he sustained her gaze.

  Tdor was thinking: Is it beauty creating a universal resemblance, a high art of human structure, or does he really resemble Joret?

  Hadand was thinking: those eyes really are gold . . . yellow-flecked light brown that blends into gold, surrounded by long, curling lashes . . . perhaps she should stop drinking wine. She was staring. And the room seemed far too warm.

  Then he raised his cup in salute. He had beautiful hands. Strong and graceful, slender wrists emerging from the cuffs of a fine linen shirt that, though he’d worn it all day, was not rumpled like Inda’s clothes. It fitted in a smooth line over his well-shaped shoulders and the contours of strong arms—

  Warmth rushed through her veins, leaving the tingle of possibility as she raised her own cup. And she braced herself to meet again those amazing eyes, touched with gleams of light reflected from the candles.

  “Ah, it’s good to eat home food again,” Inda said into the protracted silence that he hadn’t even noticed. He reached over to help himself to more rice-and-cabbage balls.

  “What do you eat on your ships?” Tdor asked, exasperated. No one cares about songs. Let’s do food again.

  Inda grinned at her. “Don’t be imagining shipboard food is bad. Not on the Death. Lorm is a great cook. Trained in Sarendan. They use a lot more spices, and cream in a lot of things.”

  “Like the Adranis,” Hadand said.

  “Lorm—our cook—couldn’t often get cream, but the spices he had in bunches all over the galley, and even growing right on the ship, in pots, during the warmer seasons. Since nobody but me likes our food—they think it too plain—” He waggled a hand. “The spices were popular. Especially on long cruises when there isn’t much of a change.”

  “What’s the best food you ever had?” Hadand asked, turning politely to Jeje.

  “Colendi. The real stuff.” Jeje jerked a thumb at Tau. “He showed me where to get it, when we were grounded in Bren.”

  Hadand turned Tau’s way again, and he enjoyed the tingle of anticipation that burned along his nerves at the impact of her gaze. Laughter flared behind his ribs at the unexpected: he never thought to sit at a table flirting with a queen under her king’s nose. But marriage was different for the likes of kings, not just here but in most places. Royal marriage was often a dynastic or diplomatic requirement—you needed heirs, you needed one of each of the two sexes as symbolic heads—it seldom had much to do with the heart.

  “Tell me about Colendi cooking,” Hadand said.

  “Typical of Colendi life. The senses must all be in harmony, including sight. You could therefore say that in Colend, food is an art . . .” He brought his discourse to a smooth close, with reference to the Colendi penchant for music and illusory art in their plays.

  “They have Colendi plays in Anaeran-Adrani,” Hadand said, elbows on the table, chin on her laced fingers. “Even though I couldn’t hope to catch all the references, I came to enjoy them very much. Once I learned how to watch a play.”

  Tau savored the curve of her lips, the hint of rueful humor there. Inda’s sister! How much of his attraction stemmed from his long friendship with Inda? She did not have any of the grace, style, or perfection of feature of the Comet, his lover in Bren, but he found her far more compelling just from one day’s acquaintance. Comet was too artful, too much like Tau himself. This Hadand seemed to have Inda’s total lack of guile, though she was not as open.

  “. . . what I want to know is, what are magic’s limitations?” Evred asked, rapping his knuckles gently against his still-full wine cup.

  Tau and Hadand forced their attention away from each another.

  “Is your context that of battle?” Signi spoke for the first time. “Magic is not a weapon.” She said the words, yet knew them for a lie. Because the Dag Erkric, once the head of the Venn mages in the south, had been courting Norsunder in search of exactly such magic: that to be used as a weapon. This was in part why Signi sat here now, an anomalous prisoner.

  The path of Ydrasal had led her steps here. She met the young king’s watchful gaze and said, “Magic moves, mends, heals. It serves, it does not conquer.”

  Inda flicked his fingers. “Magic isn’t used for the military. I know you can’t make swords fight on their own or enemies burst into flame.” Then he turned to her, struck by a thought he’d never followed before—never had time to follow. “How about art? Do mages live in fabulous palaces and whenever they want a change, they do a spell?”

  “No. It takes as much labor to make a thing by magic as it does by hand, it is just a different kind of labor.”

  “Can you make art?” Hadand asked, resisting the impulse to ogle Tau. She felt his presence like the warmth of the summer sun: even when not looking up at the sky, her body always knows precisely where it is. “Artists talk so about their own limitations, about vision being greater than execution.”

  Signi smiled. “There is no spell for beauty, not outside of illusion. You can create illusion, but it changes nothing material.”

  “Is art illusion?” Tau asked.

  Signi’s serious face turned his way. “How do you mean?”

  “It can’t be,” Inda said. Now he was rocking back and forth on his mat. “I don’t remember exactly, but I think my mother once read me something about art being truth.” He laughed. “And you talked me out of it, Sponge, remember? Oh, the yapping we did while wanding out the stables. We took ourselves so seriously. And the masters must have laughed themselves hoarse.”

  The red-haired king smiled, the tension momentari
ly gone from his face. Tau heard a short intake of breath from Tdor.

  Evred’s nerves tingled. Inda’s enthusiasm was exactly the same, despite the scars, despite the years. He cleared his throat, long habit controlling his voice. “I remember now. I asked you something my father had recently had read to me. Is art truth, or beauty? I do not see a mirror, or art which reproduces the effect of a mirror, as art. Just so truth is not art.”

  “Then it is illusion,” Tau said, to keep the conversation going. “Hah.”

  “Contrary.” Evred’s smile was easy, even friendly in a detached way. It was not the sudden, unthinking beam of inward elation that he gave Inda, and Inda only.

  Hadand, in her determination not to be staring at Tau at table, turned her attention to her husband to discover the merry, free smile of their days in the schoolroom together, when the Sierlaef was safely far away. Surprised, delighted, she thought: Inda’s return has brought his boyhood back again.

  Evred said, “It was Adamas Dei of the Black Sword who wrote that art is harmony of all things perceivable, our finite attempt to express the sublime—the infinite. True art strives to break the bonds of the finite, and the effect of art makes us part of that harmony, for a time.”

  Signi pressed her hands together then opened them outward, a stylized gesture of grace. “Art transcends.”

  Tau waved a hand to and fro. One of his conversational skills was the ability to pose as antagonist to bring the others together, if only to argue with him. “Most art demands wealth. Art separates the leaders of style from those who want to be perceived as stylish; it enhances prestige. Or the pretence of prestige.” Is Hadand impressed with my pomposity? “I can’t think of towering pastries that look like castles and cost a gold coin apiece as art but merely as ostentation.”

  “It’s art to the pastry-maker,” Tdor observed. “There is beauty in all things to those who perceive it.”

  Signi’s lips moved as she translated, then she smiled, lips parted.