King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  Inda turned around, relieved. Dannor was standing too close to him—she made him uncomfortable. This new woman was shorter than he, with the pale blond hair of most of the Tlennen family, wide-spaced eyes with a Sartoran tilt to them.

  “I am Imand-Jarlan,” she said to Inda, and smiled past him to Signi. “Welcome to Tya-Vayir.” Then, lifting her voice, “Welcome to you all. Stalgrid-Jarl will see that the men are properly settled. Evred-Harvaldar, if you and your Sier Danas will come inside with me, I will show you around.”

  It was pretty much the same as other castles: public and workrooms downstairs, living space upstairs, and an enormous stable with a barracks over it.

  The room Imand opened for Inda was plain, clean, with a comfortable bed big enough for two. “Here you are.” Imand’s smile included Signi as well as Inda. “We’ll have biscuits and ale laid out just off the kitchens. Follow your nose if you’re lost.” She shut the door.

  Vedrid had already gotten a Runner to bring Inda’s gear up. Signi had carried her own small bag, which contained just a change of clothing and a comb. She set this down on the bedside table, one of those peculiar ones with the raptor feet as legs and thin, horizontal stylized wings curving from armrests up to the back.

  Signi regarded Inda, who stood in the middle of the room staring at his bag. She waited in patience until he regained the present world, and his place in it. “I hope Evred doesn’t make us stay here long.” He ran his hand over his hair, a sure sign he was disturbed about something. “Though I like Imand.”

  Signi considered. While Hawkeye’s wife had been talking to Inda, Stalgrid-Jarl had said with a strange, enforced sort of heartiness, “And so we stand ready to give you a triumph tonight. Say the word, Evred-Harvaldar.”

  “The word can wait until we have rested,” Evred had said.

  Signi knew she missed significance here, some kind of silent, private struggle between Evred and this tall, strongly built, ferocious-looking Jarl. Stalgrid’s Venn ancestry was very much obvious in his stature and frost-pale hair.

  Inda said abruptly, “I feel like I’m in one of Tau’s plays. I wish he was here.”

  He sank onto the bed, elbows on his knees. Signi sat next to him, stretching an arm across his broad back. She hugged him to her. “Can you tell me?”

  “Oh, it’s more Marlovan thinking. Barend told me just before he left that I was going to have to get used to politics. What is that? I’m still trying to get used to there being no threat. Not just the Venn, but pirates.” He gave her that slightly guilty, mostly uneasy look that he always did when he mentioned the Venn. “I feel like I’m becalmed. No wind, no sail. I’m here in Cama’s house, but he’s not here, and there’s Horsebutt—Stalgrid, that is—with that pinched face, he’s probably thirty but he looks old. Jowls. Then I think of Noddy.” Inda shook his head slowly. A tear slid along the scar on one cheek as he stared at his hands. “I sent Noddy to that death, Signi. Don’t say I didn’t because I did. I sent a lot of people to their deaths. I killed a lot of people with my own hands. But a friend . . . oh, I wish I knew what I promised him.”

  “Did he die comforted?”

  Inda closed his eyes and dropped his head back. A couple more tears escaped from under his lashes. Finally he drew in a deep breath, opened his eyes and swiped them with his sleeve. “Yes. Yes he did.”

  “And he went to the light. I saw them go.”

  “You saw Noddy?”

  “No. There were too many.” It was her turn for the throat-tightening, eye-burning pain of memory, and its spring of grief. “But they are all gone.”

  He took her hands. “All? Including Dun?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so,” he whispered. “Why can’t the rest of us see that?”

  “I don’t know. But I did. Please take comfort in that.”

  “Noddy—and Dun.” Inda kissed her hand again, and stood up. “Noddy left behind a son. He has my name. And I’m going to be teaching him in the academy as part of my duties. Isn’t that strange? But I’m going to do it right, oh, such a good job, I promise Noddy that. Even though he can’t hear it.” He wiped his eyes again, and held out his hand. “May as well go find the others and do whatever a Harskialdna is supposed to be doing. Want to come?”

  “No. You go be with your friends. Laugh, and give them comfort. Nightingale needs cheering. And Buck. As for me, this castle, the magics are fading, like in so many others. I think I will attend to that.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  STALGRID was worried about the magic as well. The baths under the castle drew water off the lake, but since winter it had begun to smell slightly dank under there, and the water had been gradually getting more and more chill. During the hottest part of summer they had not minded. They’d begun using the ensorcelled buckets to wash first, and the baths for a cooling soak once their bodies were clean. Less magic was used that way.

  Now he was worried about what would happen to the last of the water magic with all these people using the baths. Even worse was the thought of that damned Evred forcing one more day’s stay on them, with all those mouths champing at his harvest stores.

  Stalgrid had risen early, determined to do his absolute best to bootlick Evred into making an end to this nightmare—lick until he choked on the words.

  But. He would be on the watch for Evred’s weakness while the fellow was camped in Stalgrid’s best room, eating all his food. Only justice.

  The first test would be this surprising Harskialdna. Dannor had sat next to him at dinner the night before. From what Stalgrid could see, the fellow just leaned over his food and shoveled it in, never saying more than a word or two. After dinner, Stalgrid had asked Dannor what he was like, to get a furious whisper, “He’s an idiot.”

  “You say that about everyone,” he grumped.

  Her lip curled. “I’m wrong?”

  He snorted. “No.”

  So . . . was the pirate just a claphair? That would be prime, if so! Challenge him and you’ve got the king by the short hairs.

  It was with the king’s short hairs in mind he’d gotten up as soon as the man placed on watch reported the Harskialdna going down to the baths.

  Stalgrid hurried down the stairs, and was distracted by steam. What had happened? The hot end was hot again? He sniffed—no dankness!

  Relief—gratitude—then suspicion. Magic did not just happen. Was this some kind of oblique threat? Just what kind of stuff had that damned Evred been reading in those old archives, anyway?

  “. . . but Janden saw it, I tell you! Go ask him!”

  “I heard the same thing.”

  The voices echoing up the access stair distracted Stalgrid. The latter one was one of his own Rider captains.

  “They said it was plain as plain could be. Everyone was yelling IN-DA! IN-DA! The Venn commander was right up on the mountain with the Pirate—tall as a house, wings on his helm—and threw down his weapons, just like the old days! Right at the Pirate’s feet!”

  “And they just ran? Like that?”

  “Gone quicker’n you could spit.”

  Stalgrid entered then, and his own two captains instantly moved down to the cooler end of the water, leaving the hot end for him. The other captains gave him an uneasy look—they knew who he was.

  He did not invite them to stay, so they moved, too, and by the time he had taken off his robe and eased into the hottest end of the water—no bucket, not if the magic was back!—they were all gone. Good.

  A moment later, there was the one they were calling the Pirate. No pretending it was an insult, not in that admiring, possessive tone of voice reserved for heroes. Stalgrid had no use whatever for heroes—unless they could serve him.

  “Good morning, Indevan-Harskialdna,” he called, eyeing the fellow. He was medium in height, good shoulders and chest. He wore only a shirt; there were two white scars on one leg, and a long purple slash on the other. His feet were the same shade of brown as his face and hands, unlike everybody else’s.


  Did he go barefoot, then, like the farm laborers? This fellow was a Harskialdna? If he was as stupid as Dannor said, then who really made his plans?

  Inda was surprised to find Horsebutt alone in the baths, which he’d expected to be crammed full of captains, leaving the lake for the men. When Horsebutt spoke he sounded just like he had in the old days, like he was accusing you of something, even when he was pretending to be friendly.

  “Good morning, Jarl,” Inda said, and set his towel down, hoping the fellow was leaving.

  Stalgrid splashed out into the water. Not leaving then, just arrived, apparently. Inda sighed inwardly.

  “Going to teach us fighting today?” Stalgrid asked, swimming all the way across his bath and then back, using wide strokes. There was definitely strut in the way he took up the whole bath. Was the man challenging him, or was this some kind of a sex lure?

  Inda dropped onto one of the benches along the stone walls. “If Evred asks me to.”

  Voices in the stairwell: the Marlo-Vayir brothers, sounded like. Stalgrid retreated to the other side of the bath, annoyed. He considered how to issue a challenge without sounding too insulting. He didn’t want Evred finding out and staying another week with his entire army. “I hope you will. I offer myself as a partner. I’m sure it will be most instructive,” he added, cleverly not defining what he meant by “it.”

  Cherry-Stripe and Tuft were easing Buck down the stairs one at a time, Rat Cassad behind them. When Buck had been lowered slowly to a bench, his forehead dotted with sweat, he waved off Tuft and Rat, who threw off their robes and dove into the bath, causing a mighty surge. Cherry-Stripe began to help his brother get his shirt and bandages off.

  Inda jumped up to help, which Buck permitted. They lifted the shirt off without it catching on Buck’s stump, which still hurt enough to make him weak in his one knee if it only brushed against something.

  Too bad the Venn weren’t better fighters, Stalgrid thought viciously. If there was one thing he hated, it was favorites. Buck Marlo-Vayir had been on the strut ever since the academy, when he was one of the Sierlaef’s favorites. Then, after the Sierlaef was killed (good riddance!) what does Buck do? Become one of Evred’s favorites.

  He looks bad now, Stalgrid thought as Cherry-Stripe loosened the bandage around his knee-stump and then bent to the one round Buck’s hips. When Stalgrid saw the red flesh around Buck’s groin, he looked away uneasily.

  Cherry-Stripe threw off his robe and splashed down to help his brother. Inda pulled off his shirt and dropped down to the other side, presenting Stalgrid with an astonishing view of scars. Long ones, short ones, most of them gone white, but several pinkish and recent. Beneath those scars he was all rippling muscle.

  Stalgrid grunted, for the first time regretting the last five years’ lack of real drill. He was a busy man, and his Rider Captain tended to the tedium. Maybe he should swing a sword again . . .

  Inda and Cherry-Stripe eased Buck into the water. Buck hissed, head arched back. At a glance from Cherry-Stripe, Inda waded out into the water.

  Stalgrid muttered to Rat, “What happened to him?”

  “Venn went after joints, mostly,” Rat answered, low-voiced, as Inda ducked underwater and swam in a few powerful strokes. “One tried to tendon-slice Buck. Another got his other knee when he lifted his leg to avoid the first, a third mostly took off his arm, and he fell onto a fourth fellow’s sword. Nearly lost his parts.”

  Stalgrid’s own parts constricted. He shifted his gaze to the water.

  Buck leaned his sweaty forehead against his brother’s as Cherry-Stripe held him steady. “Let me die, Landred,” he breathed. “Let me die.”

  They held the triumph the next night.

  As many captains as they could fit into the hall were entertained sumptuously, with the very best Tya-Vayir’s kitchens (as well as those of their surrounding liege-houses) could offer. Braised fish fresh from the lake, braised potatoes (rice being rare, with Idayago’s lowland rice plantations all trampled up), buttered cabbage, perfectly crisped rye rolls, and after that, honey-and-nut cakes.

  Imand’s First Runner, Hibern, had noticed that Inda only drank the ale, so they served the locally brewed dark ale as well as wine. Maybe that explained Inda’s mood, or maybe it was just the rise and fall of ballads, both the old ones—joined in by everyone—and the new.

  Someone had added verses to Hawkeye’s old favorite, “Yvana Ride Thunder,” an ancient and somewhat self-serving song justifying Yvana ambitions, though it had a good, table-thumping rhythm and a chorus like a trumpet charge. The new verses vividly celebrated the five hundred men, most of whom had died at the top of the pass in order to hold the Venn back. Badger and Beaver (who had convinced Evred in their private conversation that they could swap half years as Jarl just as easily as they had intended to as Randaels) wept openly, hardly able to sing. The sight of those lifted faces and exalted voices from the Sindan-An, Tlen, and Tlennen clans choked Inda up. He was not the only one.

  Noddy was given tribute with his share of songs as well. They weren’t great as songs—one was too plainly an obscure old ballad with new names inserted—but the singing was resolute and heart-deep. Nightingale and the Khani-Vayir captains listened to every word, drinking them straight into the spirit.

  Evred did not relax until the speeches were done.

  He’d said to Inda just before sitting down, “You’ll need to speak, you know.”

  And Inda’s jaw dropped open. “Me? I’ve never made any speeches!”

  “It doesn’t have to be long. My uncle scarcely said more than a couple of words, I’m told. But it’s traditional. Before you lead the ‘Hymn to the Fallen.’ ”

  And so, after Stalgrid offered a toast to the Harvaldar and Harskialdna, Inda stood up and studied the rows of expectant faces. Emotion tightened his throat. He cleared it. “When the call went out. The king—” A hand toward Evred, sitting so still, his hands gripping his wine cup, his gaze in its depths. “—Evred-Harvaldar needed the Sier Danas. And they came.” He lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, one big hand groping, then turning palm up. “They came.”

  It was the way he said those last two words, so simply, with the gruffness of undisguised grief, that caused many throats to tighten, and eyes to burn with tears of sorrow. And of pride.

  Then he began the “Hymn to the Fallen,” at first a lone voice: everyone had expected more of a speech.

  But Imand joined in a sweet, high, clear soprano, and Badger and Beaver joined, tuneless and loud, and by the tenth word they were all singing full-throated, the emotion all the more intense for being shared.

  Then it was Evred’s turn.

  He stood up. The room quieted. “You all have been hearing details about the two battles we fought. There was a third battle, far rougher than anything we saw.”

  Some of the men looked up in surprise. Stalgrid scowled, uncertain; he hated surprises. Imand, Hibern, and the few other women all lifted their faces. They knew, as the women always knew.

  And so should it be. “The first Jarl I ever made was Dewlap Arveas. His first son was lost fighting pirates. He and his second son were lost when the Venn first arrived in their boats. That left Liet-Jarlan and two hundred women and girls to face nearly three hundred ships full of men.”

  The silence had been comfortable, but the small noises of shifting fabric, whispers, quiet steps as Runners and servants moved about, had ceased.

  “Two hundred women and girls. Against thousands. Thousands. Of enemies. When surrender was offered them, the Jarlan struck our banner herself, so that the Venn could not take it. And then they fought to the last. Because they fought to the last, we are able to celebrate today. They held off the invasion for what seems to have been two, almost three days. Long enough for Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir and Noddy-Turtle Toraca to reach that pinnacle.”

  He paused. From across the room he could see the gleam of tears in Imand’s eyes, but her face was exalted.

  “There are no songs
yet, because most of us did not find out until we were already on the road to come home. But there will be songs.”

  This time, he led the “Hymn to the Fallen” himself.

  The volume of sound made glassware ring faintly, and Evred himself found his throat closing. But he must speak on; when the adulation that bound them into one inevitably faded, restoring them to individual ambitions, regrets, angers, and curiosity, they would be comparing memories of what he’d said. Whom he’d ignored. Such was human life.

  So he said much the same as he had in Ala Larkadhe, knowing that those old words glory, bravery, heroism forever remembered, forever sung, weighted with fresh grief, and pride, and affection, carried meaning to those who sought meaning.

  Then he shifted from the dead to the living, as it must be.

  He praised Ola-Vayir, now gone home.

  He praised Buck, so badly wounded in leading the charge at the river, and the ringing shout that went up—the men standing and raising their glasses—had its effect on Buck, who never should have been there. His glittering eyes, the flush in his thin face, all eased as Buck took in the tribute, and Evred waited, giving the men time to express their admiration. Giving Buck the time to look around the room at those shouting men, their fists held against their chests.

  Then Evred praised Cherry-Stripe, whose ferocious covering flights of arrows from the heights kept the Venn from sweeping forward to a victory based on sheer mass.

  He praised Tuft, who arrived so spectacularly, and he described Tuft’s thundering arrowhead charge that threw the Venn back over the top of the pass, which caused cheers and drumming on the table, Imand’s dishes rattling dangerously.

  He ended by praising Cama, who was entrusted with following the Venn retreat. Cama was now a Jarl, which brought even more cheering.

  Imand wiped away tears. Stalgrid showed his teeth in that false grin Evred had loathed since he was ten years old and watched the bigger boys at the academy games. Dannor’s mouth was twisted, and she tossed back more wine, longing for this tedium to end; Starand sent her a triumphant smirk. One of the captains had told Starand that Idayago was at least four times the size of Tya-Vayir.