King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  She hesitated, the quill in the air. Should she add how uneasy it made her, thinking that the Venn were probably making the very same sorts of jokes, away up there somewhere to the north? A droplet formed at the end and she hastily tapped the quill against the side of the inkwell.

  Before she could write more, Tdor’s Runner entered. “The Iofre,” Noren said, and Inda’s mother walked in, looking thin and worn. But she’d been smiling since she heard that Inda had returned to his native soil at last.

  I was stupid to think she never had feelings, Tdor thought. I just never saw them. Because when she was sixteen and came here to marry the Adaluin, she hid her feelings behind duty.

  But she couldn’t hide her yearning now.

  “Willing hands everywhere,” Fareas-Iofre said. “The men will be ready to ride out long before they can possibly be needed.”

  “Even Branid’s hands are willing?” Tdor asked.

  Fareas opened her palms. “Whipstick thinks your message from Inda acted on him as a threat.”

  Tdor protested, “It wasn’t a threat. Inda just said, ‘Tell him I’ll talk to him when I get home.’ Just like that. I didn’t intend to misrepresent Inda’s words.” She smiled ruefully, more of a slight grimace than a smile. “I guess I’d make a bad Runner.”

  Fareas leaned her elbows on the broad stone windowsill, the diffuse light on her profile softening the lines in her face. “You know that what we say and what Branid hears have always been askew.” Her mouth curled up at one corner, a rare expression. “He certainly heard a threat, even if neither you nor Inda intended him to. But then hasn’t his life with his grandmother always been understood in terms of threat, bribery, and guilt?”

  Tdor laid her pen over the inkwell. “I don’t know how this will sound, but I feel bad now for how happy I was last night when you told me his grandmother was dead.” Finally. She wouldn’t say that word, even if they were both thinking it.

  “There was no grief visible at her funeral fire, though we scrupulously saw to all the forms.” No emotion in Fareas’ voice either, but her entire body was expressive of relief. Inda’s mother then glanced over her shoulder. “I see you are busy. I will wait to indulge my motherly questions.”

  “I only saw him the one day,” Tdor said. “Half a day.” Fareas’ pupils contracted as she breathed, “I have not seen him in nine years.” Tdor had gained just enough life experience to perceive the almost frightening intensity of a mother’s enduring hunger for her missing child. “Any little thing you tell me will be news.”

  Tdor obediently described Inda, what he’d said and done before riding out. Fareas listened, still with that unhidden hunger. This was a different sort of hunger than what Tdor had seen so briefly in Evred, but just as frightening, because it was so intense, expressed by a person who had always been as calm and cool as the lake.

  Different kinds of love, different kinds of hunger? Tdor felt she was riding over a rickety bridge. “And then they rode off. But here, I am writing to Hadand. Would you like to add a letter? I can let her know Evred’s order is being carried out, and you could ask her about Inda.”

  Fareas-Iofre rose, frowning at the gold case lying there on Tdor’s plain wooden table, the intent focus of her brown eyes bringing Inda vividly to mind. “Are you very certain no one else will see what we write?”

  “Dag Signi promised it would be so.”

  There was a brief pause, broken only by the flutter of birds nesting under the sentry-walk crenellation just overhead. “Do you trust her?” Inda’s mother asked.

  Do you trust someone who—no. Stupid ballads—“stole your beloved’s heart” meant nothing but a claim to victim-hood. Tdor’s inward struggle was short; she’d fought the battle and won, and won it again during her long ride home. Lust, she could honestly attest to—the thought of Inda’s splendid shoulders, his big, expressive hands. The way he laughed, a burr deep inside his chest: the Sartorans (as always) had a word for it, fremitus. Everything about Inda made her want to laugh, to cry, to sing, to hold him close enough to breathe his breath and feel his heart beat against hers.

  That sudden fire inside—that was lust. Hunger.

  Tdor said slowly, “I think I must trust her. Inda does, though Venn she be. If she is full of guile, it is the deepest guile ever known, deeper than any of us can see. And she will be living among us, I suspect, so it’s better to assume good will.” She burst out, “I don’t know why we have marriage treaties anyway. Wouldn’t it be better if we were like the Anaerani, where Joret is, where they can pick the person they marry?”

  Fareas-Iofre had not moved from the window. She laid her hands flat on the sill. “The girls are finished with knife practice. Chelis tells me the streams and the river are down enough to send the girls out to collect feathers from the high-water debris.”

  Tdor was about to say, “And so?” when she realized the Iofre meant for her to give the order. She felt hot all over.

  Fareas-Iofre regarded Tdor’s red face, and interpreted her expression successfully. “Yes, your first order as future Iofre. And your next act should be to go downstairs and use the measuring string on the Rider who seems closest to Inda’s size, because you need to begin on his wedding shirt. And so you should tell the men, because it will cheer them enormously to think about that during the weeks to come, when these high spirits fade away. As they must.”

  Tdor—always so capable—stood up, sat down, and picked up her quill, playing with it absently as she frowned.

  Fareas said, “As for your question. I never told you girls why we make wedding treaties—or why, for that matter, we make wedding shirts. Events being what they were, I always felt the subject could wait.”

  In other words, while the heir to the throne was trampling treaties and tradition by chasing Joret all around the kingdom.

  “True,” Tdor said soberly.

  “Easiest first. In the plains days, we know from songs that men used to weave bands in clan colors for the wife, and the wife for her husband. Those bands were treaty markers: no war between the clan, and to seal it they sent a daughter to the other family to be raised with the son, and eventually married to him.”

  “I knew that much,” Tdor said.

  “Well, just before we made the change to living in castles, one of Evred’s foremothers made a shirt for her intended, who was also her lover. She made a shirt for love—she embroidered it all over with his house symbol, and various ballad images and so forth. Thus the shirt was better than a mere band for a treaty-wedding. So then it became a matter of derision for the men who didn’t have wedding shirts, the implication being no one would have picked them if there hadn’t been a treaty.”

  “I think I get it now,” Tdor said. “Jealousy? Lovers and spouses competing? Because of the wedding-treaty system?”

  Fareas opened her hands. “No matter what kind of system you have, there are inevitably going to be lovers and spouses competing. Meanwhile, the move to the castles changed almost everything. The bands went out of use. Men, living in castles now, lost their skills at campfire weaving. The bands in clan colors were also considered barbarian. Everyone wanted written clan-treaties. So on.”

  Tdor was ruining her pen. She laid it carefully down again.

  “As for treaty marriages, surely you know by now that there is no way to put rules to love or attraction. Because nothing successfully controls it.”

  “No,” Tdor breathed.

  “So we try to lessen enmity between clans with the treaties, the promise that your children and my children will produce our children. And we hope that a boy and girl who grow up together will know one another well enough to have family love.”

  Tdor’s lips parted. Then her eyes blanked: she was thinking of how Signi had observed her, as if for a sign of what her place might be in Inda’s household. Just as there were stories about favorites who entered a house and began changing the furniture, as the saying went, there were others who (there were sayings for every situation, Tdor
realized) who found snakes in their bed.

  Tdor remembered Inda’s and Signi’s self-conscious care around her. How that hurt!

  “I’ll give the order,” Tdor said, going to the door. As if that would leave those memories behind.

  “And I shall write to Hadand. Thank you, my dear,” Fareas-Iofre said.

  Tdor fingered the neatly hemmed length of Castle Tenthen’s best, fine-hackled, double-bucked linen, nearly smooth as silk and finer in substance: warp and weft both the same size yarn, made not into the formal tablet that they used for the house robes and tunics, but the honeycomb, only used for the best sheets and shirts.

  She ran her hands along the fabric, wondering what she herself really knew of love. She thought: To say that I am “in love” with Inda would make everyone laugh, for I had not seen him since we were small, and when we did meet again, it was for only a day.

  The ache in her throat had nothing to do with her lack of skill at embroidery. She knew her Runner, Noren, who was skilled with a needle, would show her how to embroider, and she knew that Inda would not complain if the result was not exactly deft.

  No, she thought, glaring at the needle, at the basket of silken threads in their neat twists. I have nothing to regret. Inda will never refuse to come to my bed. His dag will not make trouble in my home. That much I could see by the end of that shared meal. Everyone will be thoughtful of the others. Everyone will be kind. If Inda loves her forever, then . . . then there is more love in the world.

  She threaded the needle with the brightest red she could find, and shoved a few stitches through with such violence she pricked her thumb. She popped it into her mouth lest she stain the shirt no more than thirty heartbeats from beginning her task.

  What hurts the most is that I do not know if he will come back. So I am going to make this shirt and believe he will return, she thought firmly, and set a straighter stitch. I will carry it with me everywhere I go, and every person in Castle Tenthen will see Inda’s wedding shirt, and they will know I expect him to come back. So here will be a sun, and then I’ll make the Algara-Vayir owl, and then maybe a ship, if I can get someone to draw me a model of one . . . and every stitch is going to bring him closer to home.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  ABOUT the time that Tdor arrived home in Choraed Elgaer at the beginning of spring’s first stretch of warm weather, far to the north Evred-Harvaldar’s army slogged their way across the mired countryside under band after band of rain.

  Jeje: I notice you did not answer. Did I put you to sleep? Would you rather have less of Taumad’s inner tempests, and more of the ones he is traveling through? We have been crossing an ocean of grass. The road usually runs alongside rivers, except when it winds around low hills. People working in fields straighten up, down tools, watch us pass, some looking with longing, others wary. I wonder if there are some who, despite the snapping flags and these magnificent horses, go back to their hoeing thinking: better you than me!

  Tau also rode past the old men who’d been seeing dashing cross-country riders all their lives, or had been among the dashers themselves.

  Two old dragoon scouts sat in a boat on a placid lake, trying to fish, until the rumble of hooves sent the marsh birds flapping skyward, scolding raucously. The two eyed the ordered ranks who galloped up the road and splashed their way across the shallow end of the lake, enabling the horses to cool off and drink before they surged up the bank on the other side and vanished over the ridge.

  “Montrei-Vayir pennons.” One gnarled thumb hooked over a shoulder. “Tlennen’s pup going north again. Think the Venn’re coming at last?”

  “I don’t know about that, but what I do know is they’re a damned nuisance,” came the sour reply. “First good day we’ve had in two weeks, and what happens? Look at the lake, all gone to mud. It’ll be tomorrow afore it settles, and the fish all hiding down at the bottom. We may’s well give it up and paddle ashore.”

  There was one other watching them ride.

  After leaving Lindeth Harbor, Skandar Mardric had traveled hard and fast in search of the Marlovan army. From a hilltop opposite the lake where the two old men were rowing to shore, he scanned the long line until he spied the snapping pennons behind the king.

  He felt no triumph. That would come when he had ensured Idayago’s freedom by ramming a knife between the red-haired king’s ribs.

  He studied the endless columns, tear-shaped shields hanging at saddles, bows slung, lances, staves, and spears in loose hands, steel blades winking when the sun did peep out.

  Mardric rode along the hilltop, hidden by the trees, until he caught up with the leaders again. The king was easy to spot, just in front of two huge crimson flags. They did not hide him, for who would dare to attack now?

  Not me, Mardric thought wryly. He laid rein to his horse’s neck and trotted back to the town he’d just left.

  He had even less chance of sneaking into a Marlovan camp than into one of their castles. But he’d learned while listening for news of the approaching army that the Marlovans sometimes broke ranks for supply runs.

  During the next three weeks, as he rode an easy parallel course to the army, he watched Runners arrive early to arrange for fresh grain for the animals (despite their vigilance, they couldn’t always keep theirs dry) and fresh food for people. They were welcomed, smiling, because word had spread that they always paid.

  The ghost at Inda’s shoulder was strongest when Inda drilled, though nowhere as bright as it had been the night they stopped at the Marlo-Vayir castle. Signi continued to be amazed that Inda could not perceive it, but so it was.

  The morning routine had changed. The Sier Danas were invited to join Inda’s and Tau’s predawn practice. Cama and Noddy were there every day, the latter pairing off in turn with Evred, who had begun to join them.

  As they crossed into Khani-Vayir, Cama began conducting the early morning training for the men. He also worked evenings with Tau, who was always willing and had no other duties. Cama had been practicing in secret since Inda’s first drill in the courtyard of the Marlo-Vayir castle before he went to the royal city; Cama had expected Inda to be impressed with Marlovan skill after his years among pirates, and instead had been shocked to discover the reverse.

  Cherry-Stripe had started out in racing spirits. The parts he loved were riding daily up and down the columns, sitting at the king’s campfire at night, and he especially loved commanding attack forces in the evening war games.

  He would have loved the prospect of war, had not Buck taken him aside for a private talk the cold, rainy morning they departed. They’d gone up to the wall in the old part of the castle and, stolidly ignoring the cold rain, Buck had said, “Don’t think war is fun, despite all the songs and the drum beating. I told you about the Ghael Hills.”

  “I know, I know,” Cherry-Stripe had said. “Your first thought is you need to pee, and your second is what’s going on? But don’t you see, we’ve got Inda!”

  Buck had glared eastward toward the faint grayish blur in the clouds where the rising sun hid behind the horizon. Then he grunted. “Yes. Take a squint at that face of his. He’s all over scars.”

  “Aw, that was just pirates.”

  “Maybe. Here’s what I do know. Ghael Hills was near to being a massacre. None of us knew what we were doing. If Inda really does, you do what he tells you. Come home alive.”

  Cherry-Stripe felt the cold grip of doubt when he remembered that his brother had to ride to back up Ola-Vayir. “You too,” he’d said.

  The doubt did not stay away. His belief that Inda could do anything—including lead them brilliantly to victory—wavered hard their second day out. The men warmed up by fast ride-and-shoot lines back and forth past a target, but instead of the commands being called by Evred through the captains, Inda took over himself. Right out loud he asked the stupidest questions, like he didn’t care who heard. And didn’t the men within earshot smirk!

  But Inda just rode around, Evred giving answers the boys had k
nown by the time they were fifteen-year-old ponytails: yes, light cavalry was for harassing attacks, mostly arrows; no, they didn’t carry lances or staffs; yes the heavies still used the snap-staff, but only against enemies with no shield. How long could a horse go on charge? How about charges uphill? Did horses hold a line when under a rain of real arrows?

  Evred just answered the questions as if they were the smartest ones ever aired, but then Evred had always been that way: wooden-faced, serious—you never knew what he was thinking.

  Once or twice Cherry-Stripe overheard mutters go through his own men—just too low for him to take notice of, they knew it and he knew it. But he also knew that tone, and if he hadn’t, the muffled snickers would have made it clear it was a wisecrack.

  After the second time he whispered to Noddy, “Why’s Inda acting like a scrub?”

  Noddy leaned forward to brush a hovering insect from his mount’s twitching ear. “Because he is one,” he said. Idiot, his flat tone implied.

  Cherry-Stripe had known him too long to care about insults. “Scrub?”

  “Just in our ways of doing things.” He gestured impatiently. “Limits of horse, of men on ground. Where was he these past ten years, Cherry-Stripe? At the academy?”

  The sarcasm was easy to shrug off. Cherry-Stripe pondered the fact that despite those scars and how tough Inda looked out there behind the tents, whirling around with no shield and steel in both hands, he wasn’t a one-man army. Could he actually run a battle against anything but pirates? Cherry-Stripe kept himself busy, and when he couldn’t ride or drill himself to exhaustion he drank to escape that question, which made it easier to sleep.

  During these same long days of travel and practice, Evred had begun confining himself to answering questions. After a time, when Inda seemed not to be watching the sunset evolutions he’d expressly ordered, Evred could not resist asking, “What do you see?”